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ADVENTURE IN 
THE NIGHT 

BY WARRINGTON DAWSON 

« 


“ A strange adventure . . . the sunset of one day ringing up 
the curtain , and the sunrise of the next bringing it down again. 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

PRINTEO IN GREAT BRITAIN 


r 



































•• 












T .-.i i'.gV w :i 



M vo j.i x & t- u v. i a j I't-.j-on 

J-CEifo VO»i929 







♦ 






















TO MY FRIEND 

JOSEPH CONRAD 













CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

1. Mr. Lawrence - 

_ 

_ 

- 

PAGE 

11 

2. 

The Deserted Manor - 

- 

- 

- 

15 

3. 

The Three Horsemen - 

- 

- 

- 

22 

4. 

A Little Lame Man - 

- 

- 

- 

28 

5. 

The Girl in White 

- 

- 

- 

35 

6. 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle 

- 

- 

44 

7. 

The Spanish Marchioness 


- 

- 

52 

8. 

The Baron de Vernac 

- 

- 

- 

6l 

9. 

The Count de Laurency 

- 

- 

- 

72 

10. 

The Trial 

- 

- 

- 

82 

li. 

Gazeaux 

- 

- 

- 

93 

12. 

A Ray of Moonlight - 

- 

- 


105 

13. 

Elvira’s Advice 

- 

- 

- 

112 

14. 

Revelation 

- 

- 

- 

123 

15. 

The Chinese Dressing-Room 

- 

- 

- 

133 

16. 

Torture 

- 

- 

- 

144 

17. 

An Experiment 

- 

- 

- 

156 

18. 

What had Become of Alain 

- 

- 

- 

167 

19. 

Results of the Experiment 

- 

- 

- 

178 

20. 

Mistress of the Manor 

- 

- 

- 

188 


9 


10 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

21. The Banquet ----- 200 

22. The Challenge - - - - 213 

23. In the Night ----- 226 

24. The Darkest Hour - 236 

25. Dawn ------ 243 

26. In the Light - - - - 252 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Chapter 1 Mr. Lawrence 

There had always been a mystery about Mr. Gilbert 
Lawrence. It concerned his family’s origin, somehow. 
And he talked so little that nobody seemed to know 
much more about it than just that. 

I was with him often, in the fine old Southern house 
where he lived. The garden was large, with more lawns 
than flower-beds, and plenty of trees—ideal for chil¬ 
dren’s games. He liked to have young people about 
him, and gave them on his grounds a free happiness 
denied to many in their homes. 

All liked him because of his geniality and resource¬ 
fulness, but most of all because of a glamour cast upon 
him by certain articles in his house. 

They were relics of the French court, to which an 
ancestor of his had belonged; and owing to some 
mysterious process, he had been involved with that 
ancestor, or with the court, or perhaps with the 
articles. Nobody knew; it was the mystery, of course. 

Some of these trinkets were trumpery to my inex¬ 
perienced eyes. I could not name them, even; I 
suppose they were small rings or pendants, or silk 
card-cases embroidered by hand, or the like. But one, 
the most valuable, was a gold snuff-box with a crest 
in enamel and diamonds, surmounted by a count’s 
11 


12 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

coronet with its many pearls. Everybody knew it had 
been the property of Gilbert, Count de Laurency, 
Huguenot progenitor of my friend. 

This snuff-box was believed to be concerned in a 
strange adventure which had befallen him, years 
before, at a manor in France, an adventure as strange 
as it was swift and terrific, with the sunset of one day 
ringing up the curtain, and the sunrise of the next 
bringing it down again. But the events of those short 
hours of night had sufficed to shake his ideas, his 
sensibilities, his beliefs, his traditions, his conceptions 
—all that goes to make up the inner self. No wonder 
he kept his secret from profane ears. 

Indeed, as far as I am aware, no one save myself ever 
heard the whole story. He was away from home, for 
a cure in a mountain region of unsurpassed beauty, 
but of few resources. Then, his heart reverted to those 
things which, before, had merely prompted him to 
reserve, yet to which he must have clung, though with¬ 
out exaggeration, since he preserved them. 

A torrential downpour came one day, followed the 
next by a cloud which enveloped the mountain in its 
white, moist, blinding folds. I called on him, and 
we stayed indoors, discussing old-fashioned against 
modern notions, regarding which he, much the older, 
was by far the more progressive of us two. I don’t 
know how it was that I led him to the theme of the 
snuff-box, and thence to his youthful adventure. 
Perhaps he himself felt ready to speak, urged on by 
memories imperative because of uncongenial surround¬ 
ings. 


MR. LAWRENCE 


13 


He broke off our discourse to ask suddenly : 

44 What do people call me?” 

I hesitated. Of course, he was 44 Mr. Lawrence ”; 
only, the name was sometimes pronounced with an 
extra syllable at the end, added not in endearment 
but with a touch of sarcasm, so as to strike the ear 
like 44 Lawrencie.” I doubt whether the people who 
did it—in his absence, when maligning his snuff-box— 
stopped to reflect that this had once been his real 
name, in French. 

He pressed the point: 

44 Have you ever heard people laugh at me as the 
Count de Laurency?” 

44 Yes,” I blurted out, miserable at vexing him, 
while unable to answer otherwise. Only rare accom¬ 
plished scoundrels, men quite apart both as to depravity 
and as to the practice they have devoted to their 
special gifts, can lie so as really to deceive; and clumsy 
lying is sheer cowardice, ignorance, vulgarity. 

44 So they remember,” he mused. 44 Most things 
supposed to 4 leak out 5 or to be 4 guessed somehow 9 
are patched up from remembered indiscretions.” 

His gaze had been upon the wall of impenetrable 
cloud closing round our windows; he was sounding his 
own thoughts in its depths. 

Then, abruptly, he plunged into his story. 

I have no apology to make for its extravagances; 
nor shall I attempt to explain, where he was content 
to intimate. I shall tell as he told it, in the thought 
if not in all the words, the tale of the Count de 
Laurency, and the Marquis de La Villeratelle, and the 


14 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

girl in white, and the three cavaliers. If, at times, 
one of the picturesque expressions he used happens to 
return and impose itself on me, why, let it come. Have 
I not just unwittingly adopted his out-of-date term 
< ( cavaliers ” where horsemen would have done as well? 
Yet perhaps it would not, after all. 


Chapter 2 


The Deserted Manor 


Late on an afternoon, Gilbert Lawrence rode up to 
the Manor of Cour-de-France. He was travelling 
alone, because his servant’s horse had cast a shoe; in 
his impatience to put his fortunes to the test, he had 
chafed at delays and so had pushed on, expecting to 
be overtaken. 

From the descriptions his father had given when re¬ 
lating anecdotes about the Marquis de La Villeratelle, 
Gilbert recognised the place. The truth is, he had 
previously drawn rein and stopped, with hard-beating 
pulse, before several houses, respectable in size and 
square in build, having round them the semblance of 
a moat. A few girls had laughed at him; a score of 
dogs had snapped at his spurs; and he had threatened 
to break the heads of at least three grinning yokels, 
in the course of sundry recognitions. Disappointment 
and embarrassment had not dulled his perception, 
however; and being this time quite sure of his facts, 
he felt his heart throb as never before. 

The Manor stands not many leagues from Paris, 
southward on a byway which once led direct to Lyons; 
a rectangular mass of whitened brick with a broad roof 
commanding an unlimited plain. There was about it 
no lack of charm, in spite of a certain severity. The 
long, smooth fayade, pierced with many windows, 
15 


16 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


could not have been rigid, even before fluted columns 
of a later style were grouped about the door; and a 
Mansarde softened the lines that rose against a sky 
noted for its sunsets. It remains to-day very much 
as it then struck Gilbert’s eye, and is considered 
pleasing by all who are not too fastidious about unity 
of architectural periods. Perhaps the additions due 
to the reigns of successive Louis were designed so that 
the original Louis XIII. manor might deserve the 
name of chateau with which the bourgeoisie is pleased 
to ennoble any country-house enjoying a patch of lawn 
and a couple of trees. The name as originally given 
was both simpler and truer. I doubt whether this 
Manor ever stood any siege—save one; I have not been 
able to learn that it witnessed any tragedy—save one. 
And it was into these events that Gilbert Lawrence 
rode gaily and unsuspectingly, that day when the sun 
was about to set. 

66 How could I have mistaken anything else for the 
Manor of Cour-de-France ?” he asked himself, as he 
marked various details familiar to his imagination. 
Saying which, he urged on his horse to enter in the 
finest style, just as he had done in no less than four 
courtyards that same day, and one or two the day 
before. For, oddly enough, he had always been told 
by peasants and villagers that the Manor lay a ten 
minutes’ ride beyond, or at most a Cfi little quarter of 
an hour.” It was as if a mystery existed about the 
building itself, as well as about its owner. 

No sooner had the horse’s shoes struck fire from the 
courtyard stones, than Gilbert knew he had blundered. 


THE DESERTED MANOR 


17 


Inexperienced, with everything to learn and his position 
to assure in a new country, no evil quality could do 
him more harm than over-assurance, unless it were 
foolish diffidence. 

But there were no witnesses. As he reined in his 
horse and looked about, he saw only a deserted space 
hemmed in on three sides by a low blank wall, against 
which the commons and the stables were set to right 
and to left; on the fourth side, the Manor, raised to 
the height of several steps, gazed with rows of tall 
windows across the plain. 

Now, the Marquis de La Villeratelle affected this 
place because he found its isolation and its mystery 
adapted to his eccentric habits, and conducive to 
sentimental musings on the past. He rarely enter¬ 
tained here, preferring for that purpose the historic 
Chateau de La Villeratelle, with its feudal walls and 
a pepper-box turret. 

“ From what I was told by the way, the Marquis 
must have been here yesterday,” Gilbert said to him¬ 
self. 6 6 If he and his people had left since then, they 
would at least have closed the gates.” 

So he dismounted, tied his horse very docilely to a 
convenient ring, crossed the courtyard, mounted 
three broad steps, and slowly passed through the open 
entrance-door into a wide anteroom where stood 
neither guard nor servant. 

Far from disconcerting him, this unusual situation 
excited his hopes to their highest pitch, since it con¬ 
firmed much that had been told of the peculiarities 

of the Marquis. A more ordinary nature might have 

2 


18 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


considered Gilbert’s errand as the maddest of wild- 
goose chases, prompted not even by thirst for adven¬ 
ture, but by vanity, by ambition, by arrogance. So 
people had said before he left America. It was unjust, 
uncomprehending, incompatible with facts; but they 
said so. 

Brought up in a small town, under a name slightly 
distorted by language and geography, he had at least 
been perfectly aware of the real name and rank which 
distinguished his forebears. Then the public prints had 
informed him that his kinsman the Count de Laurency, 
head of the house in France, had died of shock when 
the young heir to the title had been killed in a duel 
where foul play was suspected. 

Gilbert could not tolerate the thought that the 
noble heritage should pass to a junior branch having 
a far more remote claim than himself. Only, one link 
in Gilbert’s genealogy was uncertain; his father had 
been aware of this, and had never cared to follow the 
matter up, while having known, in youth, both the 
late Count de Laurency and the present Marquis de La 
Villeratelle. Resolved to press his claim, Gilbert had 
found letters from the Marquis to his father showing 
that their early friendship was not forgotten; and the 
Marquis was a renowned authority on lines of illustrious 
descent. 

A mission prompted by respect for the past and 
loyalty to one’s name was bound to please a nobleman 
so conservative, so uncompromising, that his like 
could be found only in remote days of chivalry, it was 
said. Whatever others might do, the Marquis de La 


THE DESERTED MANOR 


19 


Villeratelle would understand; and if he consented to 
give his help, Gilbert’s case would be established. So 
much, indeed, was staked upon the good-will of the 
romantic old lord that Gilbert had not risked com¬ 
promising his cause by writing; he had preferred to 
arrive hot-footed and plead with the inspiration of the 
moment. 

And now, in this inconceivable solitude of a deserted 
manor, inhabited the day before, he was greeted 
with a degree of unexpectedness exceeding his most 
extravagant hopes. 

Dominated by the sentiment that he must not betray 
surprise nor be at a loss, whatever might happen, he 
turned to the left and went confidently through a 
double door over which hung a rich tapestry. 

Once more silence and isolation met him, save for 
such noise as he made and the echoes he awoke. 

No air of neglect or abandonment could be detected 
in these lifeless rooms through which he progressed. 
Innumerable evidences testified that they had been 
animated very shortly before. Furniture of ancient 
design, but well-preserved or newly covered, was 
placed as if in use; nowhere could traces of dust, 
of mould, of weather-stain be detected. One or two 
doors stood ajar, as they had been left when life 
passed there last; on tables, bowls of flowers were 
still fresh and sweet; two corners of carpets were 
turned up, and the imprint of a muddy boot had 
barely dried. 

A house either inhabited or uninhabited could be 
understood ; but this manor, lying open and unguarded. 


20 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

prompted him to an uneasiness which grew as he 
advanced. 

Presently he reached a species of reception-room, 
which, as well as he could judge, must form the angle 
of the great western wing at the back. A window 
opened northward, flanked by cabinets filled with 
antiques. The walls were hung with armour—helmets, 
breastplates, shields; and with arms—spears, swords, 
battle-axes. A door on the right must lead to the 
suite of rooms occupying the main northern portion of 
the Manor; another door on the left could open only 
into a closet or narrow passage cut in the outer wall. 
Gilbert Lawrence should have known, and, indeed, did 
know, that he must go to the right. Instead, momen¬ 
tarily bewildered, or perhaps led by the blind fate 
which often may best serve us, he turned to the 
left. 

He recognised his mistake, which was twofold. For, 
having come in the wrong direction, he was not in a 
closet or passage, but in a secret entrance unapparent 
from without as it was inconspicuous from within. 
Only persons familiar with the place and its ways could 
detect it. The furniture was sober, as for a small 
withdr awing-r oom. 

If he understood its real purpose, it was because, 
at the instant he stepped in, another door, concealed 
by the semblance of an old-fashioned wardrobe, opened 
suddenly, revealing a glimpse of the road he had 
followed and the fields through which it passed. This 
door, defended by strong bars and secured with a 
massive lock, all concealed beneath imitations of stone. 


THE DESERTED MANOR 21 

of moss, of creepers, swung back into place. But that 
glimpse, short as it had been, was no illusion. 

Three men had entered. Their aspect was so un¬ 
usual, so suggestive of grave events, that Gilbert 
Lawrence halted where he was, motionless and almost 
breathless. 


Chapter 3 


The Three Horsemen 


They had ridden hard and far; their clothes were dulled 
with dust and stained with the foamy sweat of horses. 

One of the men, who stood farthest away, or rather 
swayed and tottered there, was all but fainting from 
exhaustion, from lack of food and sleep. Unusually 
tall and well built, he must have been handsome when 
less emaciated; yet something sinister lurked in his 
expression. He wore a long frock-coat, whose fine 
material, discreet colour, and impeccable cut could not 
be mistaken even in a disordered and bedraggled state; 
his boots fitted him like gloves, and came high up on 
the legs; his linen might have served for a lady’s 
handkerchief. 

The second man, of haler complexion, was exhausted 
also but able to support the first while nearly collapsing 
under the effort. He alone was dressed like a com¬ 
moner, which quality his features and his bearing suffi¬ 
ciently proclaimed. But a commoner (I use here the 
word of Mr. Lawrence, who, indeed, thereafter referred 
to this same individual as the 66 second cavalier ”)—a 
commoner may have an unpolished and uneducated 
exterior, without being mean, brutal, calculating like 
this man. The baseness of his air stopped just short 
of repulsiveness. Perhaps the retrieving trait was faith¬ 
fulness, later revealed as inspiring him to the degree 
of fanaticism. But another detail of his expression 
22 


THE THREE HORSEMEN 


23 


struck the spectator more forcibly than any of these, 
once it had been noticed; and afterwards caused minor 
questions to be forgotten. It was the fixed concentra¬ 
tion of clear grey eyes, the look of a man either trying 
to hypnotise others or else himself under a suggested 
influence. 

Least shaken of them all, the third man supported 
the second. Just as the first roused intuitive preju¬ 
dices, so the third attracted with a sense of comrade¬ 
ship. His dress, similar in fashion to that of the first 
and even more elegant, sat upon him with distinction, 
though a skirt of his coat was torn. Finally, his 
features had the stamp of the highest breeding, a cer¬ 
tain aloofness from considerations near at hand, includ¬ 
ing his own sorry plight. 

The scene had awakened Gilbert Lawrence to—how 
shall I express it?—an intuition, a foreboding, an 
understanding—he could not explain it to me. He was 
sure of one thing only, that his vague apprehensions 
were intelligibly crystallised then and there. 

What depressed and disquieted him in this lifeless 
yet not absolutely deserted manor had been an atmo¬ 
sphere of tragedy. The idea of danger threatening 
himself did not occur, even now, but the conviction of 
impending violence and death was complete. There 
are moments of crisis in life when we enjoy a lucidity 
beyond our average faculties for inception; when we 
receive keen and true impressions, realising and 
analysing in a flash affairs whose complexity might have 
addled our brains for long periods and then left us to 
guess wrong in the end. 


24 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

He had arrived uninvited, to present himself before 
a great lord in a foreign land and to ask for advice. 
Instead, he was fated to play an unexpected part in a 
drama, a part which might prove creditable or not, 
according as he acquitted himself or as luck served 
him, a part which would consequently make or ruin his 
own prospects, but on which much more than material 
considerations might depend for these others. He 
knew, too, that over the entire situation reigned a state 
of affairs incompatible with the century, with the laws 
of the country, with conceptions of right and justice 
throughout the world. Of these three cavaliers, one 
was the prisoner of the other two, who were not duly 
qualified officers, but had hunted him down and brought 
him here, willingly or unwillingly, for purposes of their 
own—or of others directing them. 

Meanwhile, the three were so perfectly preoccupied 
with their problems, that they paid no heed to the 
intruder, who stared at them and speculated upon them. 

The prospect of continuing to explore a more or less 
empty house open to such visitors did not altogether 
please Gilbert Lawrence. He was still young and 
sensitive enough to feel strongly and to visualise in 
crude lights any detail contributing to the effect he 
might produce on a stranger. The good word of every 
well-bred Frenchman who had seen him while he was 
still unknown would be needed; with time, he must 
make friends and enemies, but he could not afford to 
be branded as 66 impossible ” from the start. 

To me, it is surprising that he should so readily have 
left aside his premonitions of tragedy to become con- 


THE THREE HORSEMEN 


25 


cerned over his prospects and ambitions. The fact— 
for it is a fact—may be interpreted as proving that he 
did not take those premonitions very seriously. Per¬ 
haps he merely acknowledged them to himself when 
some outward sign forced them on him, and then he 
reverted to a commonplace point of view. That would 
be an intelligent form of either faith or scepticism, and 
indeed a happy combination of the two. 

Before moving, he assured himself that none of the 
men glanced in his direction. Every chance for retreat 
was in his favour. Proceeding with care, he gently 
eased the handle and brought the door towards him. 
There was not a creak as the hasp and the hinges 
yielded : he noted this as evidence that the Manor could 
not be deserted. As soon as sufficient space allowed 
him to pass, he slipped back. 

A voice started speaking; so huskily, at first, that 
he could not distinguish the syllables. It came from 
the Second Cavalier, whose eyes were fixed and distant. 
Gilbert stopped just an instant, and then was in the act 
of taking the last step out of the room, when the voice 
broke its veils and words were articulated : 

“ Count, we are here.” 

Gilbert, who had never yet called himself Count save 
in his most secret thoughts, whose claim to the title 
was not even presented, and who was still a complete 
^ stranger here, could not be the one addressed. Nor 
* did he suppose for a single moment that the words had 
been intended for him. Yet he remained incapable of 
movement, waiting for what might follow. 

The strange eyes of the Second Cavalier slowly 


26 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


relinquished their hold on space and were pivoted 
towards him, fixing him with their steady, visionary 
gaze. On his life, Gilbert could not have said whether 
the man saw him or not, as the words were repeated; 

“ Count, we are here.” 

6 6 He is stupefied by fatigue, and mistakes me for 
one of the family, or else a friend,” Gilbert told him¬ 
self. But doubts had come; he began to believe he 
must be meant, absurd as the supposition was. He 
added, arguing against his belief: 66 As long as my 
papers are not presented, how could I be identified?” 

Once more the voice came husky in quality and fail¬ 
ing at moments, but bringing words which could leave 
no doubt: 

66 Monsieur de Laurency, for the love of God let 
the Marquis know we are here.” 

The sound of his name, pronounced as he knew it 
should be, coming after mention of the title he con¬ 
sidered rightfully his, thrilled Gilbert to the core. 
But how could this man be informed ? The idea flashed 
upon him that perhaps letters had been sent in advance; 
not friendly but cynical letters destined to prejudice 
the Marquis de La Villeratelle against him and his 
claim. Some member of the junior branch still exist¬ 
ing in France, or else an impostor or a mere jealous 
hound, might have resorted to such methods. 

Again the man, the second of the three, tried to 
speak; his voice croaked, he gasped spasmodically, and 
his head dropped on his chest. As he swayed, helpless 
and about to fall, the Third Cavalier seized him more 
securely than before. The Second, relieved but inert. 


THE THREE HORSEMEN 


27 


loosened the hold he had kept upon the First Cavalier, 
who, unsupported and unobserved, slipped slowly, 
gently to the floor. 

It was the Third Cavalier who now spoke; he retained 
his dignity as he made his appeal, although his own 
strength was going; his eyes sought Gilbert’s: 

66 Unless you would have these two die from neglect, 
will you kindly tell the Marquis we are here?” 

The Second Cavalier recovered a semblance of anima¬ 
tion, to mutter : 

“ I shall live to see this villain expiate.” He 
gasped ; his fixed eyes glared, and he called out: 66 For 
the love of God, Count- Go!” 



Chapter U 


A Little Lame Man 


Gilbert Lawrence hurried back to the room he had 
left a few minutes before. He intended to take the 
door now facing him, which should have marked his 
onward course; there could be no utility in retracing 
his steps through the deserted apartments. 

One hand was reaching for the knob of cut crystal, 
when the door flew open with abrupt violence, as a 
little man came bouncing out, missing him by a couple 
of inches. 

66 Here, at least, is someone to take a message,” 
Gilbert reflected, while observing what manner of 
person it might be. 

The little man advanced another step, haltingly, 
and stopped with one leg half-twisted under him. That 
bouncing movement, then, was meant either to con¬ 
ceal a limp or else to give relief from it. Concentrated 
within himself he stood peering fixedly, through heavy 
glasses, at some object on the wall, a piece of armour 
or an old-fashioned weapon. With his leg bent, and 
that look of intensity, he might have been evolving an 
elaborate plan or else meditating on the success of one 
just put to the test. 

Age and station were equally difficult to guess. The 
face, rather full and clear-skinned, was free from 
wrinkles, though crow’s-feet might have existed under 
28 


A LITTLE LAME MAN 


29 


shelter of the glasses. A short-trimmed moustache, 
brown sprinkled with grey, bristled over parted lips 
which showed irregularly planted and not very white 
gleaming teeth. The head, round and bald, shone 
like ivory all over, save for a narrow chestnut fringe 
skirting the ears and the coat-collar, and a little pat of 
brown fuzz planted just over the middle of the fore¬ 
head puffed up on either side of a part two inches 
long, grotesque to the extent of clownishness. As for 
the clothes, they were of fine material but of con¬ 
spicuous pattern, and so tightly fitted as to be in very 
bad taste, branded with foppishness and pettiness. 

Still peering and reflecting, the little man grinned 
to himself, nodding his head like the articulated top of 
a porcelain mandarin, and rubbing his hands together. 
They were thin hands, whose skin had the loosened 
quality and the bluish hue of age. 

Gilbert spoke: 

6 6 Can you tell me-” 

Rubbing his hands and staring at the wall, his 
irregular teeth, his polished head, and his heavy-lens 
glasses flashing, the little man paid no attention. 

“ May I ask-” Gilbert tried again, quite at a 

loss before such indifference from someone whose con¬ 
nection with the household could not be surmised. 

No response came; but the little man slowly flashed 
round his teeth, his head, and his glasses. It was his 
misfortune that his very infirmities became absurd 
from the display he affectedly made of them. 

Only later was Gilbert Lawrence able to analyse that 
movement and what followed it. At the time, every- 




so 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


thing worked itself out so carefully, so admirably, as 
to create the impression of spontaneity; but it was too 
admirable. 

The truth is that the little man had not suspected 
the presence of a stranger until, taking his eyes from 
the wall and reconnoitring as he was given to doing 
periodically, he happened to see an unfamiliar figure 
within a few paces of him. No start, no unguarded 
gesture betrayed his surprise. The hands slowed 
gradually in their rotation one within the other; the 
lips, which had been grinning, fashioned themselves to 
a smile whose sweetness seemed genuine ; the twisted 
leg sought a position which scarcely revealed an 
abnormality; the body, which had been partly averted, 
was shifted round with cultured ease; the eyes softened 
to an inquiring, almost friendly glance, to match a 
conciliatory smile—teeth, head, and glasses, in unison 
as always, having lost their challenge; the hands 
slipped apart and one arm fell, while the other was 
extended in a studied gesture prepared to become a 
command, a cordial grasp, or a distant greeting, as 
circumstances might require. Finally, most remark¬ 
able of all, an air of dignity enveloped him; his 
absurdities disappeared, his infirmity became pathetic. 

Gilbert decided to come to the point at once, who¬ 
ever and whatever this might be. 

“ Three men are waiting,” he began. “ They-” 

“ Kept waiting ?” the little man caught up the word. 
His face expressed utmost solicitude; the outstretched 
hand remained non-committal. 44 There were—per¬ 
haps—no servants about?” A shade of suspicion 



A LITTLE LAME MAN 


31 


swept over the cheeks, while the eyes and the mouth 
grew more friendly : “ You had to make your way in— 
alone ?” 

“ Yes ; and they also,” Gilbert said. 66 My business 
can wait better than theirs, I fancy. Two of them 
require immediate attention, they are exhausted almost 
to the last degree; and the other, who befriends them, 
is not much better off.” 

The little man had listened attentively. 

66 I know; I know,” he said. 

“ You are sure the Marquis knows ?” Gilbert insisted. 
“ I was particularly asked to tell him.” 

The forehead of the little man, until now smooth, 
became such a sudden mass of wrinkles that Gilbert 
almost jumped. 

“ In due time the Marchioness shall be told,” the 
little man muttered, the harshness of his voice in con¬ 
trast with the unchanging sweetness of look and smile. 
Then, as if recovering, he inquired suavely : “ I don’t 
think I have the honour of knowing you?” At which 
the outstretched hand was waved, and returned to the 
non-committal position. 

“ If you will inform the Marquis that Gilbert Law¬ 
rence is here, I think no further explanations will be 
necessary. If the Marquis is absent, perhaps the 
Marchioness will allow me to present my respects.” 

6< Yes, yes,” the little man snapped briskly. 66 She 
knows.” 

The disconnection which reigned between his answers 
and all remarks or questions struck Gilbert unpleasantly. 
Perhaps the absurd clownish little top-knot denoted 


32 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


that the Marquis de La Villeratelle, passionate lover of 
olden customs, indulged in the presence of a jester at 
the Manor of Cour-de-France. 

6 ‘ You are certain that the needs of those three are 
being attended to?” Gilbert said. “I left them 
there ”—he waved towards the secret entrance—“ a 
few seconds ago.” 

“Yes, yes,” the little man replied, so resolutely that 
a stranger could insist no more. There was a silence, 
and he asked : “You were driving—from Paris?” 

“No; I am on my way, and I rode,” Gilbert 
answered. “ My horse is tied in the courtyard; my 
servant was delayed.” 

“ So you were long on the way ? You are tired ? Be 
seated, pray.” 

The little man took Gilbert’s hat and gloves and 
crop, laying them on the marble top of a gilt console . 
He pointed to a clumsy tapestried chair, and balanced 
himself on the edge of another, as he continued : 

“ You must tell me of your journey. Ah ! it is not 
as in the old days.” He chuckled, rubbing his hands. 
“ A gentleman of rank travelled by coach-and-eight, 
then. Not the coach-and-six vulgarised by cheap books 
for young people. That came later, and was for lower 
gentry. A person of quality had a right to his coach- 
and-eight.” 

“ Friend, kinsman, or servant, he is half-witted, and 
I should not be seated familiarly with him here,” 
Gilbert reflected. He said aloud : 

“ If I might be honoured with seeing the Marquis or 
else the Marchioness-” 



A LITTLE LAME MAN 38 

A peculiar look of mingled fear, disgust, and sus¬ 
picion swept over the face of the little man. 

4< I shall see,” he exclaimed curtly, and limped away 
to the suite of deserted rooms through which Gilbert 
had first passed. 

No sound came from any direction. The cavaliers 
must have been rescued—unless they had fainted, or 
perhaps died. That odd little lame man might merely 
have wanted to rejoin them by another secret passage; 
singular cunning peeped out at times from under his 
bland smiles. But suppose, on the other hand, he was 
so foolish that he had grasped nothing ? Which would 
be entirely compatible with his behaviour. 

The shadows beyond the window lengthened; the 
light within the room grew perceptibly less. Still, no 
sound anywhere. 

Probably the clown had understood nothing. Here 
was Gilbert Lawrence, claimant to the ancient and 
respected title of Count de Laurency, installed on a 
tapestried chair by a mild species of lunatic, deprived 
of his hat and gloves, and in a generally unaccount¬ 
able predicament. What was more, he had of 
his own initiative tied up his horse in the court¬ 
yard, and pushed his way unattended through room 
after room, as if free to act as he pleased. How 
could he justify his conduct, if the Marquis were 
to enter ? 

His strong impulse was to leave the premises, as he 
should have done long since. Memory of the cavaliers, 
whose lives might be the forfeit if they were neglected, 
held him back; and also the fatality which had led 

3 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


him on from the beginning, when he found the first 
anteroom empty of attendants. 

Getting up, he was drawn to that door through which 
he had not yet passed, the door he ought to have 
taken when by mistake he had gone to his left, the 
door for which he had been bound and which he had all 
but touched when the little lame man had leaped out. 

This time, he went through, reaching a gorgeously 
furnished salon. He walked rapidly on, opened a 
door, and stopped uncertainly in the semi-obscurity of 
a vast enclosed space. 

Little by little, he saw; and more slowly, he realised. 

It was a room or hall so long and so high of ceiling 
that it seemed narrow in proportion, stretched on all 
sides with black draperies concealing the walls and 
fanned by gusts of wind from invisible sources. In 
the centre was a throne, or else a judgment-seat, for 
dais, chair, and baldaquin were covered with black. 
At the extreme end, close to the only window, and as if 
placed there so as to concentrate all the light admitted 
on this lugubrious scene, was a headsman’s axe stand¬ 
ing beside a block. 

The black draperies swept the bare and polished floor 
in soft, sob-like murmurs. 


Chapter 5 


The Girl in White 


Impressed by the mysteries already surrounding him, 
he shrank back. Then, about to scoff at his weakness, 
he felt his blood turn to ice. 

Close to his side, the black draperies had parted as 
of themselves, in a fold between two lengths. A frail 
white hand, a woman’s hand, was detached there, as 
if cut off at the wrist. Before being aware of his 
action, he had seized it firmly. 

It was alive; the warm flesh quivered within his 
grasp. A sharp cry, hastily stifled, rang out and 
echoed twice against the muffled walls. With his free 
arm, he tore the drapery aside. 

Concealed in the darkness between those black 
hangings and the wall, the slight figure of a woman 
could be guessed, enveloped in loose white folds. 
Though he could not see her, though not a feature, 
not even a line of her form was definite to his eyes, 
he was thrilled by her presence, by her nearness. He 
released the hand. She began to draw back, watch¬ 
fully, as if fearing an aggression. 

She had braved him, and for that reason he would 
not let her escape without a word. Perhaps he already 
knew another and better reason for following; but 
more probably he acted upon the sentiment and under¬ 
stood it only later. At all events, he advanced as she 
35 


36 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


retreated, forgetful of discretion and hospitality and 
good-breeding, and of all other obligations whether 
old-fashioned or new. 

The drapery had fallen into place; the two were 
caught by it, hemmed in between its swaying mass and 
the solid wall, in a species of passage left there, not 
much more than two feet in breadth, as if for the 
very purpose that an unseen form might glide about 
within that death-chamber and remain unnoticed. The 
obscurity here was absolute, save for the suggestion of 
white which he watched, alternately fading and shim¬ 
mering ahead. 

He lost that guiding glow, and groped for some 
instants, one hand slipping along the blank wall, the 
other touching the draperies impatiently, prepared to 
tear them away for the sake of light, rather than lose 
all clue. The faint sound of a closing door struck his 
ear. She had managed, then, to slip through an unsus¬ 
pected exit; but, hurrying at the last when not yet 
quite safe, she had betrayed herself. 

Maddened by the thought he might be losing her 
for ever—this woman in white whom he had not even 
seen—he leaped forward. By sheer accident, his hand, 
continuing to glide along the wall, struck a door-jamb 
and found a knob. At that very moment, the pressure 
put upon it from within ceased. He turned the knob 
just as the key started to grind in a lock stiff from 
disuse. 

For a brief space the door held. He almost believed 
that the bolt had done enough of its work to defeat 
him. Then he felt a yielding, and resistance again. 


THE GIRL IN WHITE 


37 


The movement had been infinitesimal, but sufficed to 
evoke the picture of a frail form in white, thrown 
against the panels from within; he could fancy the 
slim hands spread out to resist him, and the dainty 
feet seeking a hold on a slippery floor, the knees 
braced to do their share; he could almost imagine 
the murmur of her breath as it came hastily but 
fearlessly. 

He would run no risk of doing her harm by violent 
methods; pressing gently and insistently, with far 
greater strength than she could command, he made his 
way in. As he did so, she abruptly released her hold, 
with a prompt decision revealing a woman of character, 
and dashed to the farthermost side of the rooim The 
darkness was such that he could no more than dis¬ 
tinguish the spot where she stood; he trusted to his 
ears rather than to his vision for knowing what her 
movements might be. 

44 Madame,” he said, 44 first of all I must apologise 
for this intrusion—if it is an intrusion, since you 
beckoned me to come, before running from me and 
trying to bar me out. Though I may have been wrong 
to obey, here I am, at your orders.” 

As she did not speak, he went on: 

44 1 am a visitor without a host to whom I can present 
my respects; I have an urgent message to deliver, and 
there is no one to take it; I have walked through a 
house in Nineteenth Century France, and have stumbled 
upon a mediaeval death-chamber with instruments of 
execution and funereal draperies. Are you of the 
household ? Then I beg you to enlighten me. Are you 


38 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


a stranger like myself? Then I am here to serve you 
if you need help or protection.’’ 

Something in his words, he could not yet tell what, 
had struck a cord which vibrated, about to respond. 
He waited, fearing by another syllable to break the 
charm, to renew her immobility, to forfeit—he did not 
yet know what, but a quality inestimably precious. 

Very slowly, and frequently hesitating, she drew 
nearer. His eyes grew accustomed to the dimness; he 
became suddenly aware of her. 

Emotion overwhelmed him as he looked upon her 
there in that deep twilight, her face shining softly in 
the faint glow caught from the sky. The recollection 
of her features which he associated with that moment 
was from knowledge which came only after. Of one 
thing, at least, he was sure: as he saw her then, he 
knew her for all time. If her soul and his had parted 
at that instant, to meet again, after an infinity, in 
utmost space, he would have claimed her as his one love 
and his one inspiration in life, whether temporal or 
eternal. During that short moment before she spoke, 
and before he suspected the dangers of more sorts than 
one hanging over their heads, he saw her indistinctly, 
perhaps, but he knew her completely. Among the 
things he saw was that she was young, a mere girl, and 
very beautiful. 

She gazed at him, distant and self-absorbed as if in 
a dream and wondering whether he were real. He 
thought she might be weighing his words. 

A change swept over her, she seemed to gather up 
all her faculties. Forgetful of what had occurred or 


THE GIRL IN WHITE 


39 


casting the thread aside, she said almost inaudibly yet 
with intensity : 

“ Leave me! How did you dare? Leave me!” 

The spell was broken, if not the charm. From very 
love of her he would not obey. His extreme joy would 
have been to carry out her maddest caprices, and claim 
no reward; he could have revelled in the consciousness 
of serving. But the cool reason which, far from being 
an enemy to emotion, can be made to rule and direct 
it so as to increase its might and usefulness beyond 
measurable limits, bade him remain, whispering that if 
he went there would be no return. 

To speak, he affected sternness; and the effort to 
control his heart-throbs rendered his voice almost 
harsh : 

e( Why did you signal to me, if you meant I should 
not follow ?” 

“ I signal?” she repeated indignantly. “I-” 

“ The hand upon the drapery,” he said. 

“What do I know of that?” She breathed 
spasmodically. <e There are no draperies in this 
room.” 

“ The hand is here, though. Will you show it to 
me?” 

Petulantly, she thrust out her right hand. 

“ The other, please.” 

She did not move. He continued : 

“ You know that the left is bruised, where I seized 
it roughly.” 

Since she remained silent and motionless, he altered 
his tone: 



40 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


If I could have guessed whose hand it was, rather 
than injure it, however slightly, I would have chosen 
death a thousand times.” 

e4 Death!” she moaned. Her reserve was shattered, 
she could no longer attempt to deceive. 44 Yes— 
death!” 

And putting both hands before her face, she wept 
softly. 

Her tragic note, and the despair in her attitude, even 
more than the word itself, recalled to him all that he 
had seen, all that had perplexed and disquieted him, 
since entering the Manor of Cour-de-France. 

44 I already know there is a mystery here,” he said. 
44 1 don’t care to know how or why, if you will let me 
serve you and will tell me what I must do.” 

44 You will help—without asking?” She now looked 
full into his eyes; her own were like stars at nightfall 
when light, filtered through the cool air, is still in the 
sky. 

Her tone became one of passionate but confident 
appeal: 

44 1—was mistaken when I went to you. I—thought 
I was calling upon a friend, and I found myself attacked 
by a stranger.” 

44 Attacked !” he protested. 

He had been thrown on the defensive. Quick to 
seize her advantage, she ceased to plead. 

44 Yes, attacked!” she said fiercely, holding out the 
left hand which a moment before she had refused him. 

In the darkness, now almost complete, it was a small, 
pale spot; it recalled her white-clad form flitting away, 


THE GIRL IN WHITE 


41 


fleeing from him between the draperies and the wall; 
or later, in this very room, when he had seen her 
retreat, and turn at bay, and he had resolved to win 
her. 

66 You bruised my hand cruelly,” she said. “ You 
admit that, yourself. I tried to escape, and you gave 
chase. You forced yourself into this room where I 
sought refuge, where I had the right to be alone-” 

The confession about the friend she had expected, 
when he, a mere stranger, had intervened instead, had 
caused a wound which shattered the very springs of 
his being; and then he stood before her, rigid, im¬ 
passive, and amazingly indifferent. 

“ If such is the case, I shall go,” he said. 

He meant it, too; only when he tried to move, he 
could not. 

There was an instant’s pause as they faced each 
other. 

“ How could I guess your purpose?” she asked 
fretfully. And, as he did not answer : 

“ How could I be sure you were not in league with 

—with-” She checked herself, and began again : “ I 

knew nothing about you, except that you were not the 
one on whom I depended just because there was nobody 
else.” 

The whole world changed for the lover; once more 
he could move, he could speak. 

“ You know I am yours to command,” he said, so 
low that she barely heard him. 

“ It may be too late.” She listened, glancing 
towards the door, and then towards the window. 




42 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“You need but tell me,” he prompted. 

“ Tell you!” she sobbed afresh. “ You said I need 
not tell anything! You promised obedience!” For 
all her distress, she was exacting and capricious like 
a charming child. 

“ I ask for instructions, not explanations,” he 
reassured her. 

Because of which, she hinted what he would not ask 
her to say : 

“ How can I tell you of my reproach, and the 
disgrace of him who, by human law, is nearest to 
me?” 

“The Marquis de La Villeratelle! ” 

She nodded; her tears were again flowing. Suddenly 
she raised her head, listening. Through closed doors 
and heavy hangings a muffled sound of feet reached 
them. 

“Quick!” she exclaimed. “It is for you to act! 
But remember—if he suspects me of so much as 
speaking to you, it will mean death for me too. Don’t 
trust his sweetness; and beware of the Spaniard. Go 
quickly ! Only ”—she caught his arm—“ swear, swear 
to me that whatever may happen, you will not betray 
y ou will not breathe to him one word from which 
he might conclude you have seen me. Swear!” 

He raised her hand to his lips, and swore—swore to 
secrecy, and to his love for her. 

She did not heed his words of love : 

“ Remember you have sworn to silence.” 

The door closed behind him. He heard the key 
grind in the lock. He was again between the draperies 


THE GIRL IN WHITE 


43 


and the wall of the death-chamber. Sounds of feet 
were clearly audible, and the steady rasping of a 
voice. 

His thoughts were not there. They were with the 
frail girl in white, who must be the daughter of the 
Marquis de La Villeratelle, and who was his love. 


Chapter 6 The Marquis de La Villeratelle 

Rays from the sunset no longer passed through the 
single window to struggle against the absorbing gloom ; 
but small square panes crystallised the bar of a red 
horizon, a cold, stark red, like the glint of rusted, 
blood-stained steel. 

A pair of torches burned within the room ; not lamps 
in ancient fixtures cunningly adapted to modern con¬ 
venience, but brands dipped in resinous substance, 
sputtering and at best casting a blurred, uncertain flare. 
Gilbert could only guess where the block must be; but 
occasionally, when the flame rose clear and almost 
bright, it caught the edge of the headsman’s axe, and 
played there an instant. 

Some distance away, the man who had been heard 
moving and talking stood in deep shadows. His dress 
was eccentric, though its fashion could not be dis¬ 
tinguished; the colour suggested splashes of red— 
perhaps an effect of the torches, or of imagination 
quickened by the scene. Above a form of exaggerated 
fullness, a small head jerked from side to side; the lips 
worked rapidly, muttering in a dull undertone. No 
one else was visible; the man’s interlocutor might be 
concealed by the draperies which sighed and swayed as 
of themselves, rousing an indefinable disquietude. 

Their rhythmic movements called to Gilbert’s mind 
44 


THE MARQUIS DE LA VILLERATELLE 45 

the opening and the shutting of secret doors such as 
that which the girl in white had used when coming to 
him, and fleeing from him, and sending him back to 
obey her will. He had forgotten former impressions 
and apprehensions, the deserted apartments, the three 
cavaliers and their knowledge of his name, the errand 
on which they had despatched him, and the little lame 
fool who might or might not have understood. His 
thought was for her who had captivated his heart and 
possessed his soul. Everything else was trivial, even 
this fantastically gloomy chamber either prepared for 
an execution or else transformed into a monument to 
the eternal memory of death. 

Perhaps that axe, that block, were heirlooms in the 
family of La Villeratelle; it would be like the present 
romantic, time-touched Marquis to treasure them senti¬ 
mentally, in a setting of draperies which sent shivers 
down one’s spine for an instant, and then, upon reflec¬ 
tion, became utterly absurd. 

Yet they swayed and sighed, sweeping the floor 
with soft murmurs like the wails of intolerable super¬ 
stitions. 

“ What childish, old-womanish ideas!” Gilbert ex¬ 
claimed under his breath, as if to break a spell. 

The sound did not carry; for at that moment the 
man who had been speaking launched upon an impas¬ 
sioned oration, filling every corner and crevice with 
long, sonorous syllables. Gestures accompanied the 
harangue; as the arms jerked about, they shook the 
folds of an ample Spanish cape. 

“ Can it be a play?” Gilbert wondered. 


46 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


For just an instant, he accepted the explanation. 
So this room, ceasing to be ghastly or preposterous, 
could find justification as the stage where local society 
was to be entertained that night. So the servants were 
busy in the kitchens or pantries; so three actors had 
arrived by a side-door; so the villain, or else a melo¬ 
dramatic hero, was rehearsing- 

Gilbert burst out laughing at his simplicity in not 
having thought of it before. The laugh had scarcely 
left his lips when he was chilled to the bone. Against 
the swaying black curtains, he fancied he saw once 
more the frail, fair beckoning hand. It was an illu¬ 
sion. But what could be no illusion was his vivid 
memory of the girl in white. 

The laugh had escaped, had gone its way, had re¬ 
sounded throughout the room. It struck the ear of the 
declaiming, gesticulating man, who broke off in the 
middle of a period. He turned and stared; then he 
laughed oddly, as in answer. The sound was dry and 
sinister. 

Only a few paces now separated the two. This man 
bore a remarkable resemblance to the little lame fool, 
evident even in the uncertain light; the cast of coun¬ 
tenance was similar and so was the quality of the voice, 
although this person had dignity of bearing whereas the 
other had been grotesque. 

“ I have already spoken to a member of your family, 
I think,” Gilbert said. 

“You are a kindred spirit, since you laughed with 
me. Great sport!” came the unexpected reply. “ But 
my words were not meant for alien ears.” 



THE MARQUIS DE LA VILLERATELLE 47 

“To be frank, I have not understood the little I 
heard. What brings me is anxiety to find the Marquis 
de La Villeratelle.” Gilbert had raised his tone, he 
could not have said why; the echoes swelled out its 
volume. 

“And now you have found him?” The question 
was put with the impertinent superiority of one quite 
sure of himself, of his actions, of his position, when 
dealing with another who should at least have, known 
better than to betray ignorance. 

“It is possible-?” Gilbert recovered himself, 

and bowed : “ Allow me first the honour of presenting 
my respects. I am-” 

“ Yes, I remember,” the Marquis smiled graciously, 
and took a step forward—a hobbling step. 

The smile, and the movement, drove the truth home 
to Gilbert. This was indeed none other than the little 
lame man, the cloak-like garment being destined per¬ 
haps to mask the disfigured limb, or else to lend dignity 
to a form which, for an unanalysable reason, was absurd 
where it should have been pathetic. A further revela¬ 
tion came simultaneously. The Marquis heard more 
clearly in this hall of many echoes, and his replies to 
remarks spoken very loud were often rational. His 
conversational eccentricities might be due to the added 
misfortune of deafness. 

“ You know, then, about the three cavaliers?” Gil¬ 
bert asked. 

“ What! You have news?” The attitude was one 
of extreme, exaggerated suspense. 

“ I told you some time ago that they were here.” 




48 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Then, the Marquis flew into a violent transport of 
rage which might have been terrifying, if his voice had 
not piped in a shrill treble of childish impotence : 

44 Here, and I was not advised immediately? Go, 
bring them to me!” 

Gilbert’s pride of race was roused. He had com¬ 
plied willingly enough, for the relief of a man so ex¬ 
hausted as to be almost annihilated. He had pledged 
himself to complete obedience towards the girl in white, 
because he loved her. But this he could not tolerate, 
though his protest compromised his chance to win her. 

44 Sir, a Laurency does not take orders, even from 
the Marquis de La Villeratelle.” 

44 Such a Laurency may well take my orders—and 
what’s more, he does,” the Marquis snarled, his anger 
shrinking to contempt. 

44 'Marquis—this affront, to my face-” 

44 To your face? Pray, what’s it to you?” 

44 If, after all I have said, and after the name by 

which you yourself have called me-” Gilbert 

stopped, disconcerted; for the Marquis showed an un¬ 
questionably genuine surprise. 

44 If you don’t know that I am-” Gilbert cor¬ 
rected himself: 44 If you don’t know who I am-” 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle had recovered his 
composure. A cordial and engaging smile was in his 
eyes behind their gleaming glasses and on his lips over 
the flashing teeth. He was evidently waiting, quite 
ready to speak as soon as the other saw fit to allow 
him the opportunity. Gilbert asked no better. So 
the Marquis, after a further short, deliberate silence, 






THE MARQUIS DE LA VILLERATELLE 49 

addressed him in a gentle, slightly reproving tone, such 
as an older and wiser man might use towards one both 
young and inexperienced, who was inferior in rank while 
not in distinction: 

66 My good sir, are you aware that, although I have 
the pleasure of conversing with you, for the second 
time, indeed, I do not yet know your name? Perhaps 
I was puzzled by a resemblance, at first, or preoccupied 
by the fear I might have forgotten a gentleman once 
presented to me.” 

“ I owe you a thousand apologies,” Gilbert 
responded. “ There has been thoughtlessness on my 
part, of course. But I fancied you might have been 
advised of my coming. Some of your household, or 
else your guests, have greeted me here, under your roof, 
by the title of Count de Laurency. To you, however, 
I prefer to introduce myself as Gilbert Lawrence, son 
of Charles.” 

“ My old friend Charles—is it possible?” The 
Marquis grasped both his hands with effusive cordiality. 
i( Charles Lawrence. Aha! Then I was not mis¬ 
taken as to a familiar countenance. My memory is 
good. Nobody can pretend that is going from me. 
Of course I knew you!” 

6( Can he mistake me for my father?” Gilbert won¬ 
dered. As the Marquis grew effusive once again, he 
quickly continued aloud : 

“ After my father’s death, I inherited the property 
our immediate ancestors had acquired, and also the 
name they gave themselves in America; but I cannot 
forget that I am heir to the original name in France. 

4 


50 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


If you can receive me later, at your leisure, perhaps 
you will assist me by examining the papers on which I 
base my claim to the title.” 

44 Claim?” the Marquis repeated, with concentrated 
expression; his effusiveness had quite disappeared, 
together with his self-satisfaction. 

“ The title which has already greeted me from 
the mouths of persons unknown to me—Count de 
Laurency.” 

As Gilbert said this, the look of the Marquis brooded 
and lowered. Perhaps he had heard imperfectly. 

44 Even assuming you are better versed in the ques¬ 
tion than I-” 

“ But I ask for your counsel, your guidance!” Gil¬ 
bert protested. 

44 1 suppose you will not object to waiting until 
urgent business has been despatched,” the Marquis 
concluded, as if there had been no interruption. 

44 Exactly what I myself proposed,” Gilbert returned 
with some acerbity, as he reflected that if the line of 
La Villeratelle had been in question, the Marquis would 
have considered it important enough for prompt dis¬ 
cussion. 

With one of those disconnected changes of tone, sub¬ 
ject, and manner which Gilbert attributed to the im¬ 
perfect comprehension of deafness, the Marquis rapped 
out : 

44 You brought me a message, I think. Did I not 
give you my answer?” 

Gilbert surveyed him in astonishment. 

Roused to anger, the Marquis cried: 


THE MARQUIS DE LA VILLERATELLE 51 

“ Did I not say those men were to be brought here— 
now—immediately ? ’ 9 

“ If you made any such remark before me, I could 
not have taken it for myself,” Gilbert Lawrence 
retorted. “ Have you no servants?” 

The vexation of the Marquis subsided as it had arisen. 
He smiled blandly: 

“ Gone ! Gone for the night. No servants. Only 
friends. And enemies.” At the last word, an expres¬ 
sion of refined, repulsive cruelty twisted his features. 
He murmured: “ Friends and enemies. But no 

servants.” 

Then, and then only, it occurred to Gilbert Law¬ 
rence that the lord of the Manor of Cour-de-France 
might be absolutely mad. 


Chapter 7 The Spanish Marchioness 

There had been moments during their conversation— 
if the term can properly be applied to those fragmentary 
exchanges of remarks—when a particular fold of 
drapery had drawn Gilbert’s attention. Not only was 
it agitated more frequently than any other, but its 
movements showed a regularity scarcely to be explained 
by a hidden door. 

Since the Marquis had spoken his last words, the 
drapery had not stirred; his eyes had not left it, and 
now it moved again, exactly as before. 

Signals, then? Concerted signals to the mad Mar¬ 
quis—if indeed he were mad ? 

After a hesitation of incalculable brevity, Gilbert 
did as he had done already when one of those curtains 
seemed to mock him : with a swift gesture he tore it 
aside. 

He was not entirely surprised to see a woman stand¬ 
ing there; but it was not until he had scanned her 
features in the flare of the torches that he realised why 
he had hesitated for an act so obvious, so necessary. 
If he had unveiled the girl in white as an accomplice to 
the Marquis, he would have felt the whole universe 
crumble. 

This woman was very tall and very dark. She wore 
a flowing gown as black as her hair and as the hangings 
52 


THE SPANISH MARCHIONESS 


53 


which served her as frame. Her eyes were large and 
remarkable, of a steely-brown hue deep but impene¬ 
trable. 

Revealed in her hiding-place, she was not discon¬ 
certed ; not a muscle quivered in her strong, lithe form. 
Her eyes, reflecting the torches like tiny mirrors, as 
tranquil and almost as bright, too, were turned on the 
intruder, without vexation or reproach, with a shade of 
interrogation. Indeed, she was so completely mistress 
of herself that she did not attempt to hide the know¬ 
ledge gathered by listening behind the curtains. It 
was Gilbert Lawrence who grew abashed. 

She assumed control of the conversation as if she 
had voluntarily made an entrance: 

“ Perhaps Mr. Lawrence would like to know what you 
want to ask of him.” 

The voice, clear and sweet, was mellow and far- 
reaching like a bell in an old cathedral; the steely- 
brown eyes had sought the Marquis, whose annoyance 
was already gone. He spoke slowly : 

“1 am told that—visitors—are here. But I am 
not informed whether they have entered—or who 
received them. Why is this kept from me? Why 
did not — why did he not — bring his message 
himself?” 

“ That is odd.” Her tone was as non-committal as 
her look; both implied that Gilbert Lawrence might 
explain if he chose. 

“ He knew no one was here to receive guests, or so 
much as to open the door but you and myself,” the 
Marquis continued. 


54 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

(“ The girl in white is systematically ignored,” Gil¬ 
bert reflected.) 

66 Might there be a misunderstanding?” The dark 
woman addressed Gilbert, but tone and look were 
unaltered. 

“ I met the three at the secret entrance—or what 
appears to be such,” he explained, and stopped, won¬ 
dering how he could justify his presence there. 44 At 
least two out of the three are in no condition to care 
for themselves, or to walk many steps,” he added. 

Her strange eyes made their placid survey, as if 
taking note of his reserves and his admissions alike, 
and storing the impression away for use at whatever 
future time might prove most awkward for him. 

44 They are still at the secret door?” she inquired. 

44 In all probability, yes,” Gilbert said. 

44 I shall go to them.” 

The Marquis assented by a slow nod; the possibility 
of going himself did not occur to him. 

Revolted, Gilbert intervened : 

44 Will you allow me, Madame? Or may I at least 
light your way?” 

Her placidity was impenetrable, unfathomable; she 
might have calculated to provoke this offer, she was 
certainly not surprised by it, although she had heard 
all that had preceded. A slight inclination of her head 
towards a torch showed that the second of his alterna¬ 
tives proved acceptable. 

She led the way along the black-draped hall, while 
he followed, having snatched a brand from its fasten¬ 
ings. But she did not take the door; whether from 


THE SPANISH MARCHIONESS 


55 


habit, or for the purpose of misleading him, or else 
simply to impress him with a sense of mysteries, she 
parted the draperies, holding them carefully from the 
flame. 

Skirting the wall, they passed through a sliding 
panel into the room beyond. As they entered, it 
struck Gilbert that the minutes they had lost on their 
circuitous course would have allowed someone else to 
slip unobserved through the door—all the more so, 
since his mind was concentrated on keeping the flame 
of his torch from contact with the curtains. 

Expecting her to proceed, Gilbert thrust his brand 
into the darkness towards the secret entrance. She 
stopped in the flush of the flaring light, superb, com¬ 
manding, and ominous. 

“ You are both kind and courteous/’ she said. 

“ Was it not the obvious thing?” he asked, with an 
inflection of sarcasm. 

“ Of course you understand that the Marquis, with 
his infirmities, could not.” 

66 He appears quite able to take care of himself.” 

“ Ah ! So you are hostile to him !” she commented 
smoothly, her eyes, placid as ever, surveying him in 
readiness to note any change of countenance. 

Gilbert decided that, having stumbled into her trap, 
his best policy was to abide by a part of his attitude as 
revealed. 

“ I know the Marquis little, or not at all,” he 
returned. “ I have been entertained with alternate 
jokes and threats, relieved by politeness at some 
moments and riddles at others. To be frank, I don’t 


56 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


know what to make of him, his household, or his Manor 
of Cour-de-France. But I am not aware that my com¬ 
prehension matters at all, since it is no legitimate con¬ 
cern of mine.” 

“ Yet you are his guest.” 

“Am I?” 

“Presumably, since you are here.” 

“ I presumed as much myself, until I realised that I 
had perhaps been—presumptuous.” 

“ At least, I have not asked who you are nor how 
you came. The Marquis was conversing with you 
familiarly, in his house, when I entered. That suffices 
for me.” 

“ In my country, the fact of my arriving and giving 
my name would have sufficed for all purposes,” Gil¬ 
bert said. “ My first mistake in the land of my 
ancestors has been to behave like the son of my 
Southern parents. Among us, over there, we ride 
through the country, we stop at the house of any 
friend or friend of a friend, and our only care is not 
to outstay the welcome which never fails us. As a 
matter of fact, I had no welcome at all here, so I should 
not have stayed at all.” 

“ But you know the Marquis?” 

“ My father knew him.” 

“ Then you are his friend?” 

“ I have many reasons for so considering myself.” 

“Yet certain reservations ? He has perhaps offended 
you—unwittingly ? J 9 

There was no answer. 

“ The Marquis is afflicted—sorely afflicted,” she 


THE SPANISH MARCHIONESS 


57 


resumed in a modulated tone of appeal. 44 But he is 
kind and gentle and generous. We who know him do 
not mind an occasional abruptness, when he has failed 
to hear; for his one desire is to do or to say nothing 
unfair. It was only after the most serious reflection, 
and weighing all the considerations forced upon him, 
that he adopted his course for to-night. I tell you 
this, so you may not misjudge him. You may witness 
much that will be difficult to explain. But we are in 
wise §nd safe hands. The Marquis is a man of 
extraordinary intellect, with the nature of an 
angel.” 

Gilbert intuitively knew that he must beware of 
this mirror-eyed, smooth-voiced woman more than of a 
madman in a homicidal mood. 

44 1 have intruded most unfortunately upon things 
which do not concern me,” he replied. 44 When I 
have conducted you, Madame, and you no longer 
require my attendance, I shall ask permission to with¬ 
draw. Perhaps I may be allowed to call at some 
future time when the Marquis is receiving.” 

In the mirror of her eyes, he saw a shade of meaning 
pass as if exteriorised and reflected there. He read 
that she had no intention of releasing him; that what¬ 
ever the means necessary or the resources available for 
retaining him, he would be forced to stay. This was 
precisely what he wanted. He would not abandon the 
girl in white; and for this end, he must make an un¬ 
conscious accomplice of the woman in black. 

44 You cannot ride to Paris over these bad roads, at 
night.” She beamed upon him with such kindliness 


58 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


that he was almost deceived. “ Provided you remem¬ 
ber not to take our little comedy seriously-” 

66 A play?” Gilbert asked, recalling his own idea of 
a rehearsal while the Marquis had mouthed and gesticu¬ 
lated in the death-chamber. 

“ A little comedy with a purpose—a high purpose,” 
she nodded, with a melancholy smile. “1 shall not 
explain. The Marquis likes neither explanations nor 
apologies. He expects others to be as just and as 
comprehending as himself; he does not even like to 
have allowances made for his misfortunes. We, who 
live near him, are in a position to appreciate his saintly 
kindness and his noble ways.” 

For an instant, her eyes hardened to steel; Gilbert 
fancied that her thoughts reverted to the girl in white, 
who dared to hold a different view. 

She continued: 

“ They are the ways of ancient times and of noble 
countries.” 

“ Still another case of a mind impregnated by 
romantic literature?” Gilbert asked. 

“Literature?” She spoke with scorn. “What 
does he want with books? One who has traditions 
does not need to waste time in reading. He knows 
what his illustrious ancestors have handed down as 
things fitting for the Lords of La Villeratelle to know; 
he learned that from his father and from his elder 
brother. He peruses parchments recording facts 
about his forebears; but he leaves books for the vulgar 
and the ignorant.” 

“ And these traditions teach all that a gentleman 



THE SPANISH MARCHIONESS 59 

should know concerning his country?” Gilbert 
inquired. 

44 Say rather two countries. Though a Frenchman 
of distinguished lineage, the Marquis has in his veins 
the blood of another chivalrous race.” 

44 Notably Spanish,” Gilbert prompted, reflecting 
that such might be the origin of this dark woman 
herself. 

“ Much of his gravity, and many of his traditions, 
come from his mother,” she assented. “ The late 
Marchioness was my distant cousin; I played upon her 
knee as a child, in Madrid. The idea of the alliance 
which brought my share of the estates as well as hers 
into this family was of her devising. Do you know 
me? It is true there have been no introductions. I 
am called the Marchioness Elvira.” In another breath 
she added with an air between impatience and ill- 
humour : 44 De La Villeratelle.” 

He took her hand and bowed over it. 

4 4 You will pardon me for not-” 

“Oh—how could you have guessed? And what 
matter, on such a night ? Which reminds me that we 
are losing time. Our visitors are still at the door, and 
the Marquis is waiting. Sweet and patient as he is 
under his many afflictions, he does not like to wait.” 

They approached the secret entrance. She paused : 

44 What will they think, these men, if you and I go 
in together?” 

44 1 don’t see what they can think, beyond the plain 
fact that you need somebody to carry your torch,” 
Gilbert said. 44 Can harm be made of that?” 


60 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Her expression was chaste and aloof; it proclaimed 
her to be beyond possibilities of evil, though even a 
saint and martyr may be aspersed by foul tongues. 
She did not reply, but raised her face, presenting it 
at a new angle in the flickering light. Posing so, in 
her closely clinging black gown with her features 
wrapped in religious ecstasy, she was like a Lady Abbess 
sublimely innocent and safeguarded by the holiest vows. 

Why, then, this farce of uncalled-for virtue? Was 
she inane, or odious, or else trading on her fair name 
so as to decoy suspicions away? 

“ She doesn’t want the cavaliers to know of her 
short contact with me,” Gilbert concluded inwardly. 
“ Else they might think there’s an understanding 
between us, and tell more than she intends me to 
know.” 

This artful use of virtue as a mask for double-dealing 
roused him to rebellion against engaging in any com¬ 
mon action with her. He preferred to grant her 
desire, which would separate them: 

“ Suppose I take the answer of the Marquis to the 
message these men sent by me?” 

She smiled and was gone, vanishing into the shadow 
like a creature of the night. 


Chapter 8 


The Baron de Vernac 


In the small cupboard-like space which served as a 
secret entrance, the First Cavalier lay stretched full 
length. The second of the three was kneeling beside a 
chair, as if he had sunk there, incapable of further 
effort. The Third Cavalier had gone. 

44 The Marquis wishes you to come,” Gilbert 
Lawrence said. 

Some moments passed before the Second Cavalier 
glanced up. Evidently, he retained no memory of a 
former meeting. 

i( I am coming. But we must carry him.” He 
pointed to the form on the floor. 

44 Better leave him where he is, until he can be cared 
for.” Gilbert bent down, and made sure that life was 
not extinct. 44 The Marquis will give instructions, I 
suppose.” 

44 His orders were that we should come? Not just 
myself, but all of us?” 

44 Yes.” 

44 Then I can’t go alone. Will you help me?” 

44 This is preposterous!” Gilbert exclaimed in 
annoyance. 

44 1 don’t think I can manage by myself,” the Second 
Cavalier gasped, pulling weakly at the unconscious 
body. 


61 


02 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“Where is your other companion?” 

“ I—I don’t know.” 

Gilbert returned by the way he had come. He was 
in a state of extreme irritation. Which of those two 
was it the girl in white had thought to call to her 
assistance—the man unaccountably missing, or this 
other, described as a villain and a prisoner? The 
former, probably; and then it was the latter whose fate 
so deeply interested her. Was it a case of a suitor 
the family had vowed to destroy—or of a marriage the 
Marquis was resolved to force? Then why should the 
prospective bridegroom be so maltreated as to excite 
her anxiety, her compassion ? Unless, indeed, that were 
the plot of the “comedy with a purpose” mentioned 
by the Spanish Marchioness. The girl in white could 
not love him; nor did she appear to love the one whose 
help she had wanted. And yet—who could ever tell ? 

Sighs and heavy steps, a noise of dragging, and 
sounds between sobs and moans, caught Gilbert’s ear. 
He looked back and held up his torch. The Second 
Cavalier was laboriously dragging the body of the 
First. One more step, and the Second stumbled across 
the helpless form on the floor. 

“ I shall call the Marquis; wait here,” Gilbert said, 
and passed so rapidly into the room still separating 
them from the black-draped hall, that his light was 
blown out. 

The blackness about him was absolute, save for the 
red glow of the charred brand he carried; for some 
while he had observed its flame growing both paler and 
steadier. He was reduced to groping his way, when 


THE BARON DE VERNAC 


63 


he heard, from the adjoining hall, the voices of the 
Marquis and of the Third Cavalier, bandying his own 
name between them. 

“ So I am to receive communications from the Count 
de Laurency, though he is dead,” the Marquis was 
saying. 

£< A Count de Laurency is dead—which does not 
prevent another from living,” the Third Cavalier 
answered loftily. 

“ 6 Le roi est mort, vive le roiP” snarled the 
Marquis. <e But that was said of the rightful order of 
succession.” 

66 The only order is inevitably the right one.” 

Gilbert had found the handle of the door, and burst 
in. The Third Cavalier, who was facing towards him, 
made a sign to be still, first imperatively and then 
beseechingly. The Marquis was unaware of an in¬ 
terruption. 

46 1 have kept my promise,” the Third Cavalier 
said. s< I have brought the Baron de Vernac, so he 
may have with you the explanation which honour 
demands and which he evaded.” 

In spite of his anger, Gilbert had paused. So the 
First Cavalier was the Baron de Vernac. Perhaps it 
would be wise to let the Third Cavalier continue, as 
he wished; the privilege was, indeed, due to him for 
defending the name of Laurency in the absence of its 
owner. 

The Marquis was again raging : 

“ You told him, then? You told him?” 

“ Sir, I have never yet betrayed a trust,” the reply 


64 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


came haughtily. 44 Perhaps, when complying with 
your odd request to bring de Vernac to you, I had 
reasons of my own; it suffices that I complied, and 
gave my word and have made it good. I may have 
affairs to take up with him, also; but I recognise your 
right to speak and to act first.” 

44 Yes, yes—and then?” the Marquis cried out 
impatiently. 44 Since you told him nothing, what 
happened ?” 

44 1 followed him, as agreed; no easy matter, for 
he had taken a circuitous route. After a ride of 
more than twenty hours, during which we scarcely 
rested-” 

44 You and he?” the Marquis broke in. 

44 No! I and your retainer, of course. Did you not 
send us off together ? I ran de Vernac down, last night. 
My attitude at first was what might have been ex¬ 
pected from one nobleman towards another. I told 
him that his abrupt departure had both surprised and 
displeased you; that there were matters you wished 
to discuss with him; and that he owed this to you, 
being still your guest, since he had not taken leave.” 

The Marquis nodded approval. 

44 He merely laughed,” the other continued. 

A scowl distorted the features of the Marquis. 

44 1 engaged him in games of hazard with cards and 
with dice. I knew I would be his master, with luck 
and time and patience. We played through the night. 
I began by losing, and kept on losing. I lost pretty 
nearly everything I own, save my name. Then, in a 
jocose, maudlin, triumphant mood, he proposed to me 



THE BARON DE VERNAC 


65 


to play my moustache and my boots against all I had 
previously lost to him; he vowed to send me away 
bare-faced and bare-footed. Luck had been steadily 
against me; but I saw a reason why she should change. 
He was no longer trusting to her, but to himself; as 
I read the leer in his eyes, I knew his turn had come 
for losing. I took the bet, and won. Again and 
again, I won. So I grew waggish, and said what I 
had planned all along: 4 Baron, I keep my person 
intact, I keep my horse and my money, my lands and 
my houses; and I take, besides, this cash and much 
property of yours. Now, I shall be as fair to you as 
you were to me, and stake all you have lost against 
a joke- Only, my joke must be funnier than yours. 
If you lose, you will act as my attendant and follow 
me wherever I go, until sunset to-night. Come! You 
cannot refuse?’ He accepted; and he lost. That was 
to-day at dawn. By riding hard, I got him here before 
sunset.” 

66 But ”—the Marquis darted a look from the 
window— 44 the sun has set,” he muttered. 

44 Which releases him, as far as I am concerned,” 
the Third Cavalier answered. 44 From this moment 
my attitude must be impartial, if only because of the 
satisfaction I myself may have to ask when you have 
finished. If you are right in your surmises against 
him—and I believe you are wrong—then you can’t 
hesitate. Yet you appear to have spread a trap rather 
than prepared a conference. Two days ago, this house 
was filled with servants; in all Europe, your hos¬ 
pitality is noted. I return to-night, at your invitation. 


66 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

bringing another guest with me; I find still another 
waiting here, and you receive us in deserted—barracks, 
I had almost said. Are there such secrets, then, that 
we cannot deal as noblemen among noblemen?” 

“ Let me first make sure of those facts which you 
question,” the Marquis grunted. 

“ I humoured your whim, Marquis. I entered into 
a joke, and I kept my word to you without unfairness 
towards de Vernac. But the tone taken by your 
steward, when seeing de Vernac at my orders and con¬ 
sidering him to be at our common mercy, did not 
please me.” 

“ Gazeaux is the soul of devoted loyalty!” The 
voice of the Marquis rose to a scream. 

“ Perhaps. But he acted too much like a kidnapper, 
to suit my tastes,” the Third Cavalier retorted dryly. 

“I thought I could rely upon you, Count de 
Laurency!” 

The opening Gilbert Lawrence had wanted was now 
forced on him. He stepped forward : 

“ A Marquis de La Villeratelle may rely on a Count 
de Laurency for all honourable services.” 

The Marquis started, as if taken by surprise. 
Swiftly, the Third Cavalier came up, and whispered : 

“ You would have done better to let me finish. This 
affair is—unusual.” 

“Evidently,” Gilbert said. 

“ Unless you know more about it than I?” 

Gilbert shrugged. 

While these words were exchanged, the Marquis 
strained to listen, and grew impatient; but instead of 


THE BARON DE VERNAC 


67 


interrupting the two, or haranguing them when they 
stopped, as might have been feared from his expression, 
he shouted : 

44 Gazeaux!” 

He whom Gilbert Lawrence had called the Second 
Cavalier, while describing him as a commoner, stag¬ 
gered in and stood swaying against the draperies. 

44 Is your mission accomplished, Gazeaux ?” the 
Marquis asked smoothly. 

44 Otherwise I wouldn’t have dared to return,” 
Gazeaux growled with the rough familiarity of an old 
servant grown so valuable as to be insufferable. 

44 Is your mission accomplished?” the Marquis 
asked again, but coldly and suspiciously. 

44 The Baron de Vernac is there, much fagged, but 
alive.” Gazeaux, puzzled and anxious, jerked his 
thumb backward over his shoulder. 

44 Is your mission accomplished?” For the third 
asking, the Marquis threatened sternly. 

Gazeaux shook off the torpor due perhaps to physical 
fatigue and self-complacency. His eyes were fixed and 
his drawn face was rigid, as he understood : 

44 1 have brought the Baron; that part of my 
mission is accomplished. For the rest-” 

With raised hand, the Marquis ordered silence- The 
Third Cavalier might have served the ends of the 
Marquis de La Villeratelle, but rather as an instru¬ 
ment than as a trusted partner. Gilbert took note of 
this. 

44 Gazeaux,” the master ordered, 44 lead the Count 
de Laurency to apartments where he may rest.” 



68 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


The words were uttered with a significance which 
struck Gilbert only later. At the moment, he observed 
the stress laid upon the close. A vague uneasiness once 
more crept over him, not so much because of a meaning 
he had not guessed, as because of the cunning, re¬ 
pulsive expression on the face of his host. 

Uncertain as to whether he should suffer himself 
to be led away, or else should trump up an excuse for 
remaining, Gilbert glanced inquiringly at the Third 
Cavalier, who took an unexpected cue and said, 
bowing : 

44 Then I leave you, Marquis; and you, sir.” 

This assumption by another of a part which he con¬ 
sidered his own surprised Gilbert into momentary 
inaction and speechlessness. Gazeaux may have taken 
this for tacit consent, since he snatched up a brand 
from a pile heaped in readiness against the wall behind 
a curtain, lighted it at the burning torch, and led the 
way. 

Alone with the Marquis, Gilbert reflected that the 
action of the Third Cavalier was perhaps not only 
logical but wise. 

4 4 The prisoner!” the Marquis cried out with abrupt 
harshness and violence. It was singular how brutal 
his voice became at unguarded moments when he did 
not modulate it to an affected softness. 44 Where is 
the prisoner? Who stands guard over him? In these 
deserted premises—and I need no guest to tell me they 
are deserted—” he laughed insultingly— 44 is no one 
beside him?” 

He had wheeled and approached so fiercely that 


THE BARON DE VERNAC 


69 


Gilbert stepped back, throwing out his arm. The 
Marquis, unobservant in his self-concentration, took 
no notice, and did not alter his manner. 

66 What have you done with him, you son of Charles 
Lawrence, my old and trusted friend? He stood by 
me in my youth, and I never failed him. Surely, you 
can be no traitor to me?” 

Offended, yet disarmed by the allusion to his father, 
Gilbert pointed to the apartment where the First 
Cavalier had fallen. 

6 6 The person whom I assume to be the Baron de 
Vernac is there,” he said. 

Roughly tearing from the fixture the only torch 
still burning, though now flickering to extinction, the 
Marquis ran in the direction indicated. Before follow¬ 
ing, Gilbert felt his way to the pile of new brands, and 
selected one, commenting to himself on the foresight 
with which such details had been planned, and on the 
knowledge of every detail which Gazeaux the steward 
possessed. 

Years later, for all the softening effect of time and 
distance and philosophy, Gilbert Lawrence was re¬ 
luctant to describe the scene on which he came. He 
said to me : 

4 4 The Marquis bent over, absorbed in contempla¬ 
tion of his enemy. There was about him a dumb, 
intense spirit of violence, a low brutish exultation, an 
essence of immeasurable and inconceivable passion, a 
veiled and grisly horror, beyond the scope of such 
words as I can command, or even of such knowledge 
as I possess—and I am grateful for the limitation. 


70 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Some things in life are best left unfathomed by those 
who wish to be sane and healthy. 

“ Then a change came, quick as the crash of a giant 
icicle reached by the rays of the sun. The solid majesty 
of passions too deep for human analysis, though too 
low for human contempt, was shattered. 

4 4 1 can imagine that the look I saw on his face—if 
a human term can be used—may characterise some 
forms of animal life. Perhaps the hawk, soaring in 
the skies, may have such a look in its eye for a bare 
instant when marking the victim on which it is about 
to plunge. Perhaps a great beast of prey may so look 
and so feel when leaping not on an ordinary creature 
needed for food, but on some particular animal which 
has either outwitted its previous efforts or defied its 
absolute authority; or else when the beast, crossed in 
its mighty loves, would be pleased to take vengeance 
on innocent blood. For if that look contained both 
greed and triumph, it contained also hatred and the 
exulting love of hate.” 

At first, Gilbert Lawrence had thought he would 
have to avert a crime. But the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle was only gloating over his victim and 
making sure of the identity—marking him, in a word. 
Lowering the torch and peering greedily, his dim eyes 
further blinded by smoke and flame, the Marquis 
stooped lovingly to study every feature over and over 
again. 

Presently, he intoned a strange and passionate 
recital, a sort of monologue declaimed in an under¬ 
tone. Phrases which Gilbert had fancied he caught 


THE BARON DE VERNAC 


71 


in the death-chamber, when approaching the cloaked 
figure of the Marquis, were droned out like a re¬ 
capitulation of headlines : 

66 Betrayal—Dishonour—Expiation; The Law of 
our Forefathers; Older Justice—Better Usages; Ways 
Fit for Gentlemen—The Only Death for Caitiffs.” 

Sounds of a grinding key and a falling chain came 
from the direction of the secret entrance to the Manor. 
Gilbert knew that if the one he still called the Third 
Cavalier, lacking a name, were made a prisoner, his 
hope for necessary guidance now, as well as for sup¬ 
port in the event of a tragedy, would be reduced 
almost to nothing. Even when recalled to conscious¬ 
ness, the Baron de Vernac would be of little help, 
though for the defence of his own life; apart from his 
exhaustion, he had very possibly been drugged by 
Gazeaux. But what mattered most of all was that 
measures of detention exercised against the Third 
Cavalier, by a partisan of the Marquis, would prove 
this Cavalier to be a friend of the girl in white. 

Calmly, and as if casually, Gilbert held out his un¬ 
lighted brand to the burning torch. The latter flared 
up, sighed, and was extinguished as its flame darted 
upon the fresh resin, enveloped it, and licked it up. 
Seeing which, the Marquis threw the dead stick away, 
tore the new torch from Gilbert’s grasp, and went 
back to his gloating contemplation. 

66 He is having too good a time to do much harm 
before Gazeaux rejoins him; and this way, I attract no 
attention,” Gilbert thought, as he glided into the 
darkness. 


Chapter 9 


The Count de Laurency 


Haying reached the corner room, Gilbert stopped and 
listened in the darkness, with senses acutely alive for any 
noise or sign. 

To his left, as he faced the secret postern, he 
presently detected the progress of stealthy footsteps; 
they were interrupted for a few seconds while a door 
closed very gently. His ear could not adjust itself to 
the volume of those sounds, which might have been in 
the same room with him and quite muffled, or else 
slightly louder in an adjacent passage. Then a creak¬ 
ing plank brought evidence that the person, if not 
already within the room, had entered it. 

The steps came so close to Gilbert that he expected 
an unseen form to strike him. Silent and motionless, 
he held his breath. The footfall, though stealthy, was 
not light, it could not be a woman’s; it was not frank, 
and so should not be that of the Third Cavalier ; it was 
not lethargic, so did not correspond with the Baron de 
Vernac; it was not halting, so must not be that of the 
Marquis. Gilbert’s original supposition, that it might 
be Gaz^aux, remained the most likely. 

A man’s shape was drawn in dark outline for a bare 
instant, against the uncertain flare of torchlight, as a 
door opened and closed. The messenger, whoever he 
might be, had rejoined the Marquis. 

72 


THE COUNT DE LAURENCY 


73 


Gilbert felt his way into the next room of the western 
wing, found the inner wall, and followed it, running 
his hand along the surface at various heights. He had 
not been deceived by the course Gazeaux—if it were 
he—had chosen for returning. The grinding key and 
the clinking chain had sounded close beside the apart¬ 
ment to which he had accompanied the Marquis. If 
the field for his search was limited, so was his time; the 
plans formed would be put into execution all the more 
swiftly because his absence, though unobserved by the 
Marquis, would not fail to awaken the suspicion of 
Gazeaux. 

Twice, Gilbert passed the entire length of the wall, 
meeting with neither knob nor handle, nor yet with the 
slightest inequality to indicate a spring or a concealed 
opening. He was about to abandon this useless search 
and proceed, contrary to his convictions, when his 
fingers struck a dagger fixed so securely to a panel that 
it arrested his attention. All the other arms he 
had happened to touch had hung loosely on old- 
fashioned hooks, but this seemed to be riveted into 
the plaster. 

He pressed it inward, then up and down, then to 
either side, without effect. He tried pulling it towards 
him; his fingers glided off, unable to take hold, prov¬ 
ing that the dagger, if not actually embedded in the 
wall, was not more than a half-dagger. One of his 
nails caught in the guard, however; and at that slight 
touch, there came the faint click of a spring. Gilbert 
again tried to draw the dagger to him, but only broke 
his nail. Angrily, he threw himself against the wall, 


74 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


feeling for the spring. But at the first contact, the 
panel flew open, inward, and he lurched into a space 
where he dropped on one knee, his head and chest 
striking a wall beyond. 

For a while, he stayed as he had fallen, until the 
commotion should be explained or forgotten by those 
who had heard it. At least, no alarm was raised. 
Perhaps Gazeaux thought the prisoner had tried to 
escape; perhaps the Third Cavalier supposed the 
steward to be in search of fresh victims; and each was 
waiting for developments from the other. Gilbert 
himself heard nothing save his own breathing, and the 
periodical cracking, now near and now remote, peculiar 
to an ancient house. He could not tell whether he 
were in the right passage; but presently he fancied he 
caught the rhythm of another respiration, loud but 
muffled by distance or by barriers. It was the deep 
breathing of a man in the heavy, dreamless sleep of 
exhaustion : the Third Cavalier, presumably. 

Gilbert crept on towards the sound until he reached 
a door, to which he applied his ear. The respiration, 
broken by the occasional light snore of one fallen asleep 
in his clothes and oppressed by a collar, left little doubt 
as to the sleeper’s identity. 

A chain had been made fast in an iron notch, but 
was not padlocked; he released it with such cautious 
slowness that there was no clank of metal, though twice 
he grated upon the wood. As for the lock, he was first 
relieved to find the key there, and then puzzled. 
Gazeaux could hardly have been so forgetful as to omit 
removing it if a prisoner had been secured in a house 


THE COUNT DE LAURENCY 


75 


where a stranger like himself was at large. Perhaps 
Gazeaux had acted in a fit of absent-mindedness when 
securing the door; in which case the Third Cavalier 
might be an ally of the Marquis and his Spanish 
Marchioness against the girl in white. 

Not knowing but the sleeper, suddenly roused, would 
spring up and attack him, whether friend or enemy, 
and knowing perfectly that a tap or any other unusual 
noise would risk being overheard by Gazeaux, Gilbert 
turned the key very gently and entered, silent and 
invisible as a ghost before midnight. 

A single window was open on an inner court whose 
wall reflected what starlight shone from the sky. It 
was probably the same court on which that other 
room was situated, the retreat for the girl in white; 
but no sign of life could be detected from that 
direction. 

Gilbert closed the door behind him and said softly, 
yet not whispering : 

64 It is the Count de Laurency.” 

During the few seconds allowed for reflection, he had 
decided that these words would do most, in the briefest 
space, towards making the situation clear. This cava¬ 
lier, though the only one of the three whose identity 
remained unestablished, had evidently been aware of 
Gilbert’s claim to both name and title, and had 
generously championed them with the Marquis, before 
appropriating them for the sake of advisability. 

The heavy breathing ceased. There was a move¬ 
ment on the bed, as of an arm reaching stealthily for a 
pistol or some other weapon. 


76 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 It is the Count de Laurency,” Gilbert repeated. 

44 Well, who wants him?” asked the voice of the 
Third Cavalier. 

At another juncture, Gilbert might have wondered 
at the mental phenomena of a tired man torn from his 
sleep. Instead, he merely said : 

44 He wants you.” 

A short silence, difficult to interpret, followed. 

44 I want a word with you, if you will pardon the 
intrusion,” Gilbert continued, judging the man unable 
to collect his memories. 

44 Ah! I know you, now.” The Third Cavalier 
rose to a sitting position. 44 We must have a talk; of 
course we must. I had the very same idea when I let 
them bring me away, just to satisfy them. I meant to 
creep back, and make some sign or else whisper to you 
through a crevice. We must exchange such ideas as 
we have; though unless you are richer in that respect 
than I am, we may not be greatly advanced. The only 
point I’m quite sure about, myself, is that this is a very 
devil of a mess. But the sight of a bed was too much 
for me; I dropped here and fell asleep before I knew it. 
I’ve been in the saddle for twelve hours straight; and 
last night I sat playing cards and dice from sundown 
to sun-up; and during the day I had done quite a lot 
of hard riding. So there are excuses. How long have 
I been here?” 

44 Only a very few minutes.” 

44 So much the better for everybody save myself. But 
I’m at least that much sleep to the good. Well! What 
do you think of this business?” 


THE COUNT DE LAURENCY 


77 


44 1 am too newly arrived to know what to think of it.” 

6i And I’ve been mixed with so much of it that I’m 
hopelessly muddled.” 

44 Were you aware of being a prisoner*?” 

44 I?” the Third Cavalier asked, starting. 

44 Locked and chained in. I heard it, while the 
Marquis was gloating over the body of the Baron de 
Vernac.” 

44 Dead or alive?” 

44 Apparently alive.” 

44 Then why talk of bodies? Of course he was very 
tired; all but fainting when we got here. Still that 
doesn’t kill a man of his calibre. So your expression 
worried me.” 

44 Myself also,” Gilbert said. 

44 Why should they want me out of their way?” the 
Third Cavalier demanded. 44 They were glad enough 
of my help in getting de Vernac here.” 

44 But would perhaps be still gladder to see you and 
me both far away, at present,” Gilbert completed the 
sentence. 

44 There are facts I want to get out of de Vernac 
myself. I don’t want my game spoiled. For that 
reason, and for another too, I don’t like the turn 
things are taking. The attitude of the Marquis well 
-—worries me.” 

44 I know him less well than you; but I must say I 
am ill at ease. I deal frankly with you,” Gilbert added, 
44 because of your frankness towards me. I fancy we 
shall need each other’s help. Are you willing to act 
with me—or else to let me act with you ?” 


78 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“To see that this joke isn’t carried too far, you 
mean.” 

66 It may be a comedy, and it may be a vengeance.” 

66 Oh—as to that—de La Villeratelle has a way of 
talking-” 

The Third Cavalier broke off, as if he had inexplic¬ 
ably lost interest. He was trying to peer through the 
window without making the movement apparent. Per¬ 
haps he had fancied some sign of life in the courtyard, 
or at the window of the room opposite. 

The diversion gave Gilbert two causes for anxiety. 
If they did not concert their action now, they could 
not intervene in time. And who could it be in the 
courtyard or at the window—who, if not the girl in 
white ? 

“ If there were only talk,” he said, taking up the 
thread of the interrupted sentence. 

“What is there else?” the Third Cavalier asked, 
more absorbed than ever. 

Gilbert resolved to drive his point home and either 
convince the Third Cavalier, thereby stopping his 
observations, or else fail to reach an understanding and 
be free to withdraw. 

“ Words and looks such as those of the Marquis 
must have a meaning,” he said, “when put in con¬ 
junction with an executioner’s block and axe.” 

What ? cried out the Third Cavalier, spring¬ 
ing up. 

“ Don’t raise your voice,” Gilbert warned ; and went 
on to describe the death-chamber as it had appeared 
to him. 


THE COUNT DE LAURENCY 


79 


“ Why, he’s mad ! Let us go at once.” The Third 
Cavalier strode towards the door. 6i Or no, we must 
plan our line of action. I suppose—” he sank his voice 
very low—“ I hope the Marchioness does not know 
of this?” 

Gilbert was pledged to discretion concerning the 
girl in white alone; he wondered how much it would 
be wise to admit concerning Marchioness Elvira. 

“ She seems to know a great deal, but alludes to it 
as a comedy,” he said. 

“ That’s unlikely.” 

“ I hold it from herself.” 

“ From herself?” 

“ From Marchioness Elvira herself.” 

“Oh!” There was a brief silence. “ I under¬ 
stand now. She probably put him up to it. Quite in 
keeping with her tastes and traditions. I’ve heard her 
say the Inquisition was the grandest institution of the 
ages and she would like to see it restored not only for 
heretics but for political, social, and personal offences 
also. Since the Marquis has some of that same blood 
in his veins, added to a good dash of lunacy, she exer¬ 
cises a big influence over him. This is the sort of 
joke which would appeal to her. She’s got her head 
about her, at least, and will know where to stop. 
Though it’s a dangerous game to start playing with a 
madman.” 

“ So you do consider him mad?” 

“Of course. Who doesn’t? A pretty mess we’re 
in for—” the Third Cavalier broke off peevishly, and 
continued—“ A nice part I’ve played, too, without 


80 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

suspecting it! If only we can head the business off, 
nobody need be frightened unnecessarily.” He again 
peered through the window, with less precaution. 

44 Not even de Vernac, if he is brought to the block ?” 
Gilbert asked. 44 Those whom the Marquis and his 
Spanish Marchioness have warned may be prepared; 
but how about others?” 

The Third Cavalier looked towards Gilbert as if 
studying his face in the dim light. 

44 From what you have told me, she is running the 
show as a sort of surprise,” he said. 44 Which means 
that she has not shared knowledge unnecessarily. Am 
I right there?” 

44 Presumably.” 

A pause followed, as if the two had come to a dead¬ 
lock. Then the Third Cavalier spoke with the com¬ 
pressed ardour of an anxious lover : 

44 My sole object is to spare the Marchioness as far 
as possible.” 

Gilbert stifled a long sigh of relief. He reflected 
that Elvira was indeed a woman who could inspire a 
profound passion to certain men. 

44 I suppose that sparing her will include, incident¬ 
ally, the rescue of de Vernac. Shall we go?” Gilbert 
asked. 

44 By all means.” The Third Cavalier straightened 
up, but did not seem ready to start. 44 Don’t you 
think it might be well if we knew a little more about 
each other?” 

44 It is true that I don’t know your name.” 

44 Nor I yours.” 


THE COUNT DE LAURENCY 81 

“ Why—you called me by it! So has Gazeaux—so 
has the Marquis.” 

44 The information of the Marquis and Gazeaux,” 
the Third Cavalier retorted coolly, putting the names 
in their proper order, 44 cannot concern me. Do you 
care to tell me who you are? I am the Count de 
Laurency.” 

So Gilbert knew that it was not he himself who had 
been addressed, and had been under discussion, on all 
those occasions, but the one he had dubbed the Third 
Cavalier; and he knew that this man, on whom alone 
he could rely for aid and confidence, was the usurper 
of a younger branch, claimant to the name and title 
which were his own by right of heredity. 

Memory of the girl in white brought him self-con¬ 
trol, and inspired the prudence on which her fate might 
depend. His voice was quite calm, quite steady, quite 
natural. 

44 My name,” he said, 44 is Gilbert Lawrence.” 


6 


The Trial 


Chapter 10 

On the threshold of the death-chamber, they were 
stopped by an imperious glance from Marchioness 
Elvira. The Marquis, seated on the black-draped 
throne, was murmuring softly, rapidly; his glasses and 
his bald head bobbed and glittered in the dimness. 
She had been listening. But while her mirror-like eyes 
commanded the intruders to be still, she interrupted his 
flow of words : 

44 Try, if you wish. You will not be disturbed.” 
As he seemed to object, she insisted : 44 There must be 
a trial.” 

Her expression relaxed; she left him and approached 
the door. 

44 The Marquis wishes to try his speech, before the 
grand scene occurs,” she said, so low that deaf ears 
could not hear. 44 If you are very quiet, you may 
stay; for you both understand.” 

Gilbert’s vision, growing accustomed to the torches, 
had detected the Baron de Vernac, propped in a chair 
opposite to the Marquis, with Gazeaux mounting guard. 

44 If you wish us to retire-” the Third Cavalier 

began. 

44 Why should you, if you don’t interfere?” she 
asked. 44 You know it is harmless sport.” 

44 We accept the invitation, and stay,” Gilbert said, 
while his companion hesitated. 

82 



THE TRIAL 


83 


She fixed her gaze upon him, questioningly. 

“ Am I indiscreet ?” he asked. “ Is it not polite to 
do as one is bidden?” 

“ I was not aware you had been bidden,” Marchioness 
Elvira remarked ; and slipping among the draperies, she 
was gone. 

“She got you there!” snickered the Count de 
Laurency, or he who styled himself as such. “ But 
frankly, are we employing our time better here, or-” 

“Here,” Gilbert answered firmly. “Listen.” 

For the Marquis was speaking. He had begun to 
deliver a species of act of accusation. The flow of im¬ 
passioned words was unintelligible, at times; perhaps 
only to Gilbert, yet there must have been obscurities 
where ranting eloquence replaced argument or state¬ 
ment of fact. Gazeaux, while not losing a syllable 
uttered by his master, kept his attention closely upon 
the prisoner. 

“ I use that term,” Gilbert Lawrence broke off his 
narrative to explain to me. “ Whatever common 
sense might suggest, and whatever Marchioness Elvira 
and de Laurency between them might have to say, I 
could not help taking the situation seriously. At this 
very moment the Marquis was behaving as if he had 
not only consecrated himself sovereign lord of another 
man’s life, with authority to apply a death-sentence, 
but as if he had appointed himself public prosecutor, 
and judge and jury besides. Marchioness Elvira might 
call it a comedy, with or without a purpose; de 
Laurency might say the Marquis was merely un¬ 
balanced, and controlled by that woman’s power to 



84 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


hold him back from active harm. That was all very 
well. But the girl in white both believed there was 
danger, and feared it for herself and for others. To 
doubt it was to doubt her. My own instinct, and my 
direct observations, provided I did not attempt to 
reason, led to the same conviction. As I watched the 
Marquis now, he seemed to he haunted by the spirit of 
another age, of another race; he had set back the clocks 
of time the necessary number of centuries for this scene 
to be credible. 

66 From such passages as I could hear and follow, 
I gathered that the Baron de Vernac, profiting by the 
hospitality of the Marquis, had made attempts upon 
the honour of the Marchioness; that, failing, he had 
spoken abroad in a way to stain the name of La 
Villeratelle; that a foul murder he had committed, and 
dastardly means he was known to have used in duels, 
debarred him from giving satisfaction as a nobleman 
and a gentleman; that, guilty of many crimes in the 
eyes of God and man, he had influential connections 
so that he went always immune. 

<fi I missed some link or possibly the conclusion 
there; for my attention was drawn by extraordinary 
tenseness on the part of him I have called the Third 
Cavalier, and to whom I suppose I should now refer 
as the Count de Laurency. While neither waiving my 
own claim nor recognising his, I had decided to allow 
him that name temporarily, so as to conceal my identity 
and to continue our collaboration, as was essential, for 
a while longer. He, too, had fixed the prisoner with 
a fascinated stare, and with an air of vengeance quite 


THE TRIAL 


85 


new to him. I judged it to be for the sake of the 
Marchioness; I could find nothing else in the case, as 
stated by the Marquis, to justify such a change. Yet 
he had known of this suspicion against de Vernac.” 

Perhaps, also, the Marquis grew incoherent; the 
disconnected phrases which Gilbert caught may have 
represented the close of the harangue: 

“ And so, for this assemblage of acts becoming a 
despicable caitiff, but beyond all laws of honour and 
in violation of the rights of a sovereign lord upon his 
own lands ... A man disqualified for the high Judg¬ 
ment of God as applied among men of rank and of 
integrity . . . To avenge the crimes committed, to 
make an example of those attempted, to prevent 
those which in future would not fail to be 
planned. . . .” 

The horrible monologue ended in a jumble of 
chivalrous maxims, mediaeval allusions, and feudal or 
prehistoric principles. In an altered tone, calm and 
reserved, though filled with menace, the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle addressed the unconscious form before 
him: 

“ Prisoner, do you say nothing for your defence ?” 

Silence enveloped accused, accuser, and witnesses, 
while the torches flickered in their stands. 

“Prisoner, do you say nothing for your defence?” 

The human shape huddled in the chair slipped a 
little lower, as if the Baron de Vernac had made a 
wilful movement of shrinking. 

“ Only the trebly guilty, as you, indeed, are, could 
cower before such charges and find not a word to say!” 


86 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


cried out the Marquis. 66 For the third and last time, 
prisoner, have you no defence to make?” 

Gilbert touched the Count de Laurency’s arm. Even 
at the price of compromising the girl in white by rash 
intervention, he could not stand a mute witness to such 
a farce—if it were a farce; still less allow such a 
tragedy to be prepared—if it were a tragedy. 

At the touch the Count de Laurency turned quickly; 
but he met Gilbert’s nod with another, directed first 
at Gazeaux and then at the Marquis. 

His expression roused Gilbert to a new sense of 
danger, no longer mysterious, but tangible and very 
close. 

Gazeaux held a pistol in his hand; a second was 
thrust in his belt, and a long hunting-knife was 
strapped to his left side. The Marquis, too, was armed 
and as it were ready. At a word, at a sign, the life 
of the helpless Baron de Vernac might be sacrificed. 

Once again, Gilbert remembered that his pistols 
were in the holsters of his saddle. 

The Count de Laurency tapped his pocket, and his 
face grew stern: he had made a motion, in his room, 
to take up the pistols laid on the table beside his bed, 
but had reconsidered when recognising the voice, and 
had forgotten all about them. 

Both men were unarmed against these two armed 
madmen; any imprudence on their part exposed not 
only their lives but most especially what their lives 
meant for the protection of others. 

The Marquis rose up and extended an arm. His 
cape fell about him in majestic folds; his figure seemed 


THE TRIAL 87 

to have grown tall and erect; his face lost its buffoonery 
as he declaimed : 

44 Know ye then that for these crimes here designated 
and proved, I, Jean Marie Francois, Marquis de La 
Villeratelle, Lord of the Manor of Cour-de-France, do 
here in this hall of judgment, and in the presence of 
these witnesses here assembled, pass sentence upon you, 
Pierre Amedee Gaston, Baron de Vernac, to die the 
shameful death on the block of infamy at the rising of 
to-morrow’s sun.—Warden, remove the prisoner to his 
cell.” 

As Gazeaux, rechristened the warden, lifted up the 
unconscious Baron to carry him away, Gilbert whis¬ 
pered to the Count de Laurency : 

44 Do you still consider this a joke ?” 

44 1 admitted it might take a dangerous turn—con¬ 
sidering the Marquis,” the other answered. 

A swiftly whispered dialogue followed : 

44 Then they may try to carry out the execution?” 

44 Who can ever tell, with madmen?” 

44 In any event, we have until morning. But at the 
moment I am unarmed. Shall I try to get my pistols 
from my saddle, or is it better to wait?” 

44 1 am unarmed, too, but my pistols are nearer than 
yours; I left them at the head of my bed. Let me get 
mine first, and we shall be covered while you go for 
yours.” 

44 Good. And what shall I do in the meantime?” 

44 Keep him amused.” 

44 Then you will come back before I go ? That makes 
much moving about. Suppose you give me a signal ? 


88 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ Too risky. These deaf people hear everything not 
meant for them; and there’s Gazeaux.” 

44 Shall I slip away with you?” 

44 No. He must be kept amused. I shall get your 
pistols, too. Only, I have a word to say to him first.” 

44 During which time I can reach my horse in the 
outer courtyard.” 

44 It’s you who feared to arouse suspicions by jump¬ 
ing about too much.” 

44 But since you have something to say and I haven’t, 
why shouldn’t I go while you amuse him?” 

44 Because the brief word I must say will do anything 
but amuse,” the Count de Laurency replied grimly. 
44 That is one reason. Another is that I know the 
premises and you don’t. Will you accept my plan ?” 

44 Yes,” said Gilbert, to end the discussion. 

They had been extremely imprudent, whispering in 
this room of many echoes and of uncounted exits. But 
it was doubtful whether any sound could have reached 
the Marquis; Gazeaux had gone, and they had stood 
away from any wall. 

If no word had carried, however, the Marquis had 
noticed the two in their sustained contact, and was 
watching them with a suspicion tinged by hatred. 

The Count de Laurency advanced : 

“ Marquis, you hold knowledge which it is my right 
to share. I heard your accusations against the 
prisoner-” 

44 You dare to disagree?” thundered the Marquis. 

44 1 dare whatever I please—save that I owe you 
courtesy of language in your own castle,” the Count 


THE TRIAL 


89 


de Laurency replied with a fine dignity which rendered 
Gilbert happy to have him for a kinsman, while not 
acknowledging him in his own stead. 44 I ask to 
know-” 

“ It is I, the Lord of the Manor, who demand to 
know whether you are friend or foe to the prisoner 
now lying under sentence of death!” 

4 4 That is what I may be able to tell when you have 
answered me.—Who are those two you mentioned, the 
father and the son?” 

44 Two—a father and a son? Did I say two?” The 
Marquis peered through his glasses; his irregular teeth 
gleamed and his bald head glittered; he had a wolfish 
look. 

“Did you not?” the Count de Laurency asked, 
taken aback. 

44 1 spoke of foul murder!” the Marquis boomed. 
44 What honour has been left unstained when he came 
near?” 

44 Murder of one—or of two?” the Count de 
Laurency insisted. 

But the Marquis had reverted to gloom. He 
appeared not to hear, he certainly did not care. 

Without addressing Gilbert again, and, indeed, 
avoiding any notice of him, the Count de Laurency 
went out. 

It was well that he had taken this precaution. The 
eyes of the Marquis followed his retreating form with 
defiant sharpness until it was lost in the black hangings 
of the room, and a door closed, and silence came. 

44 You have not yet spoken, sir.” The Marquis 



90 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

hobbled up to Gilbert. 44 What of yourself? You are 
here, my guest, and have lent me assistance, but have 
not made your attitude plain. While not pledged to 
me, you enjoy excellent terms with that self-styled 
Count de Laurency, of whose loyalty I am none too 
sure.” 

44 1 believe him well disposed towards me, as I am 
towards him,” Gilbert said. 44 We have met too re¬ 
cently to be friends.” 

44 Rather rivals, perhaps?” 

44 Undoubtedly.” 

At the admission, the face of the Marquis became 
that of a fiend. The meaning of the situation flashed 
before Gilbert, clear-cut and formidable like a rocky 
chasm yawning abruptly before one’s very feet, out 
of the darkness of a stormy night. Admitting a rivalry 
of claims which the Marquis did not realise, he had 
driven in suspicions of rivalry for the hand of the 
girl in white. 

44 1 have not informed him as to who I am,” Gilbert 
said, resorting to the only possible course. 44 He calls 
himself the Count de Laurency—not knowing my 
claim to the name and the title.” 

44 You!” the Marquis exclaimed, startled into for¬ 
getting what had just passed. 44 But your father was 
Charles Lawrence!” 

44 Named for his Huguenot forebear, Charles, Count 
de Laurency.” 

44 He never told me.” 

44 Because he cared less than I; and because at that 
time our family in France had a real head.” 


THE TRIAL 


91 


44 Have you papers?” 

44 My purpose in coming was to show them to you, 
Marquis, and to ask for your assistance. By the oddest 
chance, I find myself here with my rival.” 

44 If you have proof of your rights, you may depend 
upon my support.” 

44 And meanwhile, upon your discretion? Remember 
that he does not yet know; if, as you say, he is not to 
be trusted, then-” 

Gilbert had succeeded in keeping his host amused, as 
the Count de Laurency had instructed, and better than 
either had dared to hope. Now, the Marquis recovered 
himself, and asked curtly: 

44 What did you tell me you thought of all this?” 

44 Of my own affairs?” Gilbert fenced. 

44 No, of mine,” the Marquis returned so savagely 
that further evasion was impossible. 

44 Marquis,” Gilbert said, attacking directly, lest 
the girl in white be again brought to mind, 44 these 
events are rather surprising to a stranger just come 
within your gates. Is it not natural that I should 
wait to learn a little about them, before forming an 
opinion ?” 

44 What do you need to know, beyond what you have 
seen and heard? Unless an enemy-” 

44 1 have spoken with no enemy of yours,” Gilbert 
said. 44 All here are your friends.” 

The Marquis grew wonderfully calm and reassuring. 

44 All,” he murmured. 44 For instance—de Vernac ?” 

44 Ah, no!” 

44 De Laurency?” 




92 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 Well—you yourself seemed to doubt-” 

“You do not count my servant my friend, I pre¬ 
sume? He is but a servant.” 

44 Of course.” 

“ And you have not pronounced yourself. To whom 
do you then refer, by 4 all ’ ? My own household, per¬ 
haps? They are away. My family, then? Have you 
found it so, in talking with them ? Are they—all—my 
friends ? ? 9 

Gilbert admitted, later, that he was about to fall 
into the cunning, insane trap laid for him; he was 
about to reply by a simple 44 yes ” confirming his know¬ 
ledge that the family did not consist of the Marquis 
and the Spanish Marchioness alone. But just at that 
instant, the draperies towards which he faced, and to 
which the back of the Marquis was turned, parted; a 
frail white hand appeared, pointing upward. 

His answer died on his lips. Cold sweat sprang to 
his brow. He could scarcely control his voice, yet he 
did. 

44 All? Is so much honour done to Marchioness 
Elvira that she is treated as a host in herself? She is 
worthy of it, I am sure ; and as for her devotion to you, 
Marquis, it is sublimely complete and generous.” 

The first reply of the Marquis was a veiled look of 
impenetrable significance. The second was a piercing 
glance of deadly menace. 

44 Do you,” he said, 44 not leave this room.” 

Upon which he himself left abruptly. 



Gazeaux 


Chapter 11 

Swift as the exit of the Marquis had been, Gilbert, 
who had stood motionless the while, was swifter in 
leaping to the other side of the room. Not asking 
whether he might be watched, whether this might be 
the oldest and simplest of snares, he acted on an im¬ 
pulse of boyish folly in disregard of consequences for 
her he loved, because of his desire to see her. Pursuing 
an elusive shadow, but bent on that pursuit, he tore 
through the curtains at the point where he had seen 
the hand appear. They were caught up by his shoulders 
on either side, forming an arch through which the un¬ 
certain torchlight penetrated into a small portion of 
the veiled passage, and beyond into the recess of a 
shuttered window. 

The girl in white had not fled; she was seated rigidly 
upon a chair of state; her face, in the dusk unreached 
by the arch of light, would have been scarcely visible, 
but for the lustre of the eyes. 

She was like a statue of marvellous fineness, more 
lifelike than living, to be admired with a sense of 
expectance that a miracle might inspire her. Nor did 
her breast heave as her eyes met his : she was immobile 
as marble. 

“ You here—you!” Gilbert cried out. 

For an instant longer, she gave no sign of animation 
93 


94 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Then, slowly, her right hand was raised. A cord 
slipped from the arm. The left was bound to the chair. 

44 A prisoner?” Gilbert asked. 

Her only answer was a widening of the eyes. 

He sank to his knees, in expiation for having sus¬ 
pected her. 

The great blue eyes he had seen through the dimness, 
when nothing else was visible save the white dress and 
the white hands, questioned him with mute eloquence. 

44 He has gone,” Gilbert said. 

She found voice to moan : 

44 Set me free !” 

44 Did he do this abominable thing?” Gilbert asked. 
For his vision, grown accustomed to the half-light, 
detected the cords which bound not only her arms, but 
her body to that mockery of a throne. 

44 Who else?” she sobbed. 44 I was to have been 
present at that ghastly scene. He had warned me. 
Instead, he fastened me here, where I could not see 
nor be seen, but was compelled to listen : my hands, 
too, were made fast, and I could not stop my ears.” 

44 It was the Marchioness who was assailed, and 
whom he suspected!” 

44 Then you spoke,” she went on, as if he had not 
interrupted. 44 1 guessed the danger. Somehow, I 
managed to free one hand, and warned you.” 

44 Just in time.” 

44 You would have betrayed me?” 

44 1 would have betrayed the fact that I knew too 
much.” 

44 And he would have concluded-” 



GAZEAUX 


95 


44 Yes.” 

She shuddered. Then : 

44 Where is he now?” 

44 How should I guess? You heard him. You must 
understand better than I.” 

44 Set me free!” she again implored. 

44 He will know.” 

44 What if he does? Coming back, he will remember 
that you and I were both here-” 

44 Which is better than finding us both gone.” 

44 But if I had gone, and you remained? If I could 
release myself, he might believe I had escaped alone, 
without your suspecting.” 

44 Yes!” Gilbert exclaimed, relieved of an in¬ 
calculable burden. 44 You shall release yourself. Since 
one hand is free-” 

44 1 have tried—I cannot!” 

44 You have succeeded with the other arm already!” 
Gilbert released the cords as he spoke. 44 Now this— 
and this-” 

44 Hush!” she warned. 44 He may be listening, or 
his spy Gazeaux. Only help me!” 

One by one the bonds fell from her, under Gilbert’s 
fingers, trembling with love and with fear. She tried 
to rise, and could not; he gently took her by the waist, 
and steadied her until she was upon her feet; and then 
he released her reverently. 

Without a word, she moved away, uncertainly. He 
followed. 

44 You are not coming?” she asked in the tone of a 
command to stay. 



96 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

“ Do you think I would abandon you?” 

i6 It was agreed I should go, while you remained.” 

44 When you are in safety, I shall return.” 

44 But if he, meanwhile-” 

44 Suppose he does?” Gilbert rebelled at last. 44 Do 
you think I am afraid of him, though he may be mad ? 
Or of his steward, who is surely mad ? They have not 
drugged me! Where I must be prudent for your 
sake, I will; but where I must protect you, also I 
will.” 

44 You promised obedience and discretion.” 

44 Have I questioned you—and have I failed you?” 
he asked reproachfully. 

She flitted away, with regained strength. He 
followed, with unshaken resolve. 

They passed through a hidden door into a secret 
passage, completely obscure, along which Gilbert felt 
his way. No trace of the girl in white was left; but he 
went on, knowing she must be immediately ahead. He 
had not gone more than a dozen paces, however, when 
he stopped at the sound of voices. 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle and his steward, 
Gazeaux, had withdrawn into some tiny room or 
cupboard, or perhaps to a mere niche or window- 
recess; Gilbert could not make sure. All he knew 
positively was that they spoke within a few feet, 
separated from him by a substance thinner than a wall, 
since each syllable carried distinctly. Yet not only 
were they hidden, which was natural, but oddly enough 
he could not even tell from what direction their voices 
came; by a peculiar effect of acoustics, they sounded 



GAZEAUX 97 

from all sides. Unless this was a phenomenon produced 
in his mind as he grasped their purport. 

44 Here are the pistols,” Gazeaux was saying. 

That sufficed to check Gilbert’s course. Reassured 
by this evidence that the girl in white could not have 
been perceived by the two, he waited for what might 
transpire. 

There came a series of metallic clicks, as of several 
pistols passed from hand to hand. 

44 Did the Count have so many?” asked the Marquis. 

44 Two are his,” Gazeaux answered. 44 He had one 
at the head of his bed, the other forgotten in his great¬ 
coat pocket. These belong to the American. I went 
through his saddle-bags.” 

44 Both are unarmed, then—presumably,” the 
Marquis mused. 

Upon which Gilbert commented to himself: 44 That 
means we may try bluffing, if it comes to the worst.” 

44 From what they whispered to one another, they 
have no weapons left,” said Gazeaux. 

“Whispered? When?” The Marquis slightly 
raised his voice. 

44 As I took the prisoner away.” 

44 I did not hear that; I did not hear,” the Marquis 
reiterated nervously. 

44 1 stopped behind the curtains for a while, and 
listened,” Gazeaux continued. 44 The prisoner was 
none the worse nor the freer for that, and I was the 
wiser.” 

44 Well? What did you learn?” 

44 They agreed not to act until morning, but were 

7 


98 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


to have their weapons ready then,” Gazeaux asserted, 
interpreting instead of repeating accurately, as is the 
case with most witnesses. 

ee So they decided not to use their claws in the 
dark,” the Marquis commented. “ But that does not 
mean they would hold back if surprised by—what may 
now occur before dawn. Their evidence would be 
awkward if they were to speak of what they have seen : 
that is, speak unintelligently, in common, modern 
terms like people whose crude education has left them 
incapable of understanding.” 

He had evidently been thinking aloud, forgetful of 
Gazeaux; he broke in upon himself: 

“ Gazeaux, we must get this over. You have cleared 
one of these obstructionists out of my way. Put the 
second in safety also. Then, to work! Why not a 
torchlight execution, eh ? Such things have been done. 
I must ask Marchioness Elvira. She will know. Why 
did she not suggest it, I wonder? It will be more 
impressive, more terrifying. With her to advise, and 
me to command, and you to execute—ha, ha! I war¬ 
rant you that other, whose name has been assailed, and 
who defied me when I questioned, and whom it is my 
sacred duty and bounden honour to defend in spite of 
herself—I warrant she will learn a thing or so!” 

That other—another than Marchioness Elvira—who 
could she be, but the girl in white? Then it was not 
Marchioness Elvira whom the Baron de Vernac had in¬ 
sulted ? But the Marquis himself had declared the 
honour of the Marchioness to be impugned. Before 
Gilbert’s mind rose the dark and magnificent, though 


GAZEAUX 


99 


terrible, figure of Elvira, who was to “ advise ” at 
this grim sham of an execution which, by the force of 
madness, might lead to a tragedy. But what was this 
new part attributed to Irene, the fair and glorious girl 
in white ? 

I am quite sure that it was here Gilbert Lawrence, 
relating his adventure to me, mentioned for the first 
time the name of her he had called the girl in white; 
and he continued to use her name until his story was 
ended. He pronounced it, lovingly and reverently, in 
a way quite his own, causing it to stand apart from 
all other names. He said neither Ireen, in the American 
fashion, nor Ire-ne, in the English; nor yet was his 
utterance entirely French; he may have intended this 
last, but he had been out of France many years. The 
nearest I can come to rendering it euphonically is by 
suggesting “Elaine” spelt with an r in the place of 
the l; but his “Irene” was softer, gentler than 
“Eraine.” The two sweet syllables, falling from his 
lips, evoked to my mind a carving of exquisite fineness, 
a rare statue of silver and ivory, cool in its perfection 
of line and of tone, yet radiantly inspired with the 
richness of life. 

What, then, was the part of Irene, the girl in white; 
and what the part of Elvira, the Spanish Marchioness ? 

Gilbert was aware that Gazeaux had talked on, in 
a voice difficult to recognise. It had lost its distinguish¬ 
ing mark, the rasping, inhuman quality; it was humble 
and pleading. One might almost have fancied that his 
eyes were no longer stark and staring. Little by little 
he spoke louder, and the drift grew clear. 


100 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


His protests came in hysterical shrieks interrupted 
by sobbing or by words which the Marquis mumbled 
too low to be overheard : 

“ I have served you faithfully, I have carried out 
your orders, master; I have put my life and my reason 
in your hands, I have been your tool until I don’t know 
how to act for myself any longer. But don’t ask more 
of me to-night, master. . . . 

66 The Baron de Vernac is here and is asleep, 
drugged so that he can neither harm you nor escape; I 
brought him before you and laid him at your feet, and 
now he is locked in the room where the condemned 
must spend their last night at the Manor of Cour-de- 
France. . . . 

66 The block and the axe are ready; I will finish what 
is undertaken, I will cut off his head as I would chop 
the head of a chicken—and a chicken were of more 
worth than this villain who would have harmed my lady 
Marchioness ; I will do this, and then throw the carrion 
into the grave we know of, the secret sepulchre which 
none can ever find. . . . 

66 All this have I done, and will I do, because it was 
promised and because it is right. Also I have locked 
in the Count de Laurency—to await his turn if you 
judge expedient. But I will not, by God himself I 
swear I will not, harm the stranger who has come to 
our gates, and who entered them trusting to us, and 
who met me and succoured me as I fainted. I cannot!” 

The Marquis, no longer murmuring, thundered out: 

“ Cannot—will not—when the honour of my house 
is involved? Cannot and will not, where I command?” 


GAZEAUX 


101 


There was silence. Gazeaux whimpered once or 
twice. Then silence again. Next came a gentle, jerking 
sound, beating a peculiar rhythm, like arms moving 
in a preordained way, rubbing against a surface of 
smooth cloth. The while, low unintelligible syllables 
were muttered by the Marquis. 

Gilbert had felt an immense relief since learning that 
the threat was aimed at himself. It had come as a 
matter of course; and the case of the girl in white had 
not been aggravated. Furthermore, no harm had yet 
been done to the Count de Laurency, and none seemed 
to be imminent. He must only see that hfe himself 
was not made prisoner, so that he might assure the 
protection of Irene and manage to liberate de Laurency ; 
after which a stroke to free de Vernac must be com¬ 
bined. 

As he was slipping away without noise, he heard the 
Marquis order : 

“ You will obey.” 

66 1 will obey,” Gazeaux echoed. 

“ In all things.” 

“In all.” 

“ You are of the blood of executioners and of tor¬ 
turers to inquisitors.” 

“ I am of the blood of executioners and of torturers 
to inquisitors.” 

“ It is your destiny.” 

“It is my destiny.” 

“You will obey.” 

“ I will obey.” 

The voice of Gazeaux was veiled once more, and in- 


102 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


human. Gilbert guessed that the Marquis had held 
him under a hypnotic influence, and that he had come 
out of it and grown relatively sane; and that he was 
again an impassive, irresponsible, and singularly dan¬ 
gerous tool. 

Now the Marquis was speaking. Detached words 
could be caught: 

“ The American—The other—The Count de Laur- 
ency—The Chinese Dressing-Room.” 

When all was finished, Gazeaux repeated docilely : 

66 The Chinese Dressing-Room.” 

Presumably, Gazeaux would seek to apprehend ‘ 6 the 
American.” Not having yet elected on a course, and 
sorely needing the counsel of his kinsman and rival, 
Gilbert started back by the way he had come, in order 
to avoid being surprised there. He re-entered the 
death-chamber. It might be wisest, he thought, to 
wait for the Marquis here and face him, with argu¬ 
ments first, with force if necessary. 

One torch only still remained alight; its flare fell 
on the executioner’s block, but there was no reflection 
from the axe’s edge. Puzzled, Gilbert drew near. The 
axe was gone. 

He looked on the floor, he searched among the 
draperies. There could be no doubt: the axe was gone. 

“ If I make away with the block,” he thought, “ it 
will disturb whatever change of plans depended on the 
removal of the axe.” 

So he bent down, and pulled and pushed and 
struggled; but his efforts did not cause the block to 
stir by so much as a fraction of an inch; it was either 


GAZEAUX 103 

fastened to the floor or else too heavy for the strength 
of one man. 

It was here that, without precise reason, Gilbert 
Lawrence—according to his own confession as made to 
me—proved totally inadequate, unworthy of the trust 
reposed in him and of the action he had so light- 
heartedly undertaken. A sentiment hitherto unfamiliar 
to his young, confident, enthusiastic nature over¬ 
whelmed him. If perhaps not quite despair, it was 
depression and dismay, sapping his mental and physical 
powers to their innermost depths. 

66 After some minutes of blank helplessness,” he told 
me, 66 1 recovered sufficient self-control to become 
aware of myself seated on that silly block. It no longer 
filled me with horror, because itself and what it signi¬ 
fied had sunk to their just proportions as details. The 
one essential thing was that I had pledged myself to 
save Irene without asking questions, and this now 
proved to be impossible. 

“ Suppose I rejoined the Count de Laurency ? I did 
not know enough to form plans with him; and while 
he might be trusted by Irene—how I hated the memory 
of that!—I suspected that he had less information than 
I. Suppose I reached the Baron de Vernac, and drew 
him from his trance ? How was I to tell what should 
be done with him next? Besides which, I would expose 
Irene to reprisals if I were surprised. Suppose I con¬ 
fronted the Marquis argumentatively ? By not asking 
questions, while having to answer or to evade those 
put to me, I should be losing the advantage of necessary 
knowledge, while perhaps making revelations because 


104 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


of my very ignorance. With the Spanish Marchioness, 
my case would be much the same. 

“ And if I should act instead of talking? That was 
what I had wanted from the start. Only, while being 
pledged, I lacked instructions. What my rival, but 
friendly adviser, de Laurency, might decide in concert 
with me might be diametrically opposed to what she 
desired whose service was my only object. If I wanted 
to free de Vernac, must I just fling him out of doors, 
conscious or unconscious—or else, what? If I closed 
in a fight with the Marquis and Gazeaux, as was my 
passionate desire, and if I throttled them both, or 
merely battered and cowed them—what should I do 
with them next ? Or if the most I could accomplish was 
to clear a way so Irene might escape from the perils 
surrounding her: would she follow me?” 

That was the rub; he must know if she would follow 
him. 

Unable, unwilling to resist longer his yearning to 
see her, to speak to her, he slipped behind the draperies 
and, led partly by memory but more by intuition, he 
reached the room where they had first met face to face. 

He entered abruptly and unannounced. 

The girl in white was seated mournfully near the 
open window, but beyond the sphere of its dim, diffused 
light. She looked up, and, rising in alarm, drew back 
into the deep shadows. 


Chapter 12 


A Ray of Moonlight 

66 Do not be afraid,” he said. 44 It is I—your friend 
—your servitor. It is I who have sworn to obey and 
to protect you—asking no questions.” 

He could just discern her form, standing motionless, 
all in white. The moon had risen, and shone faintly 
into that inner court of whose existence he knew; he 
saw paths and flower-beds in whose midst a small foun¬ 
tain murmured, sobbing gently. Had she approached 
the window, he could have gazed on her features 
illumined by the reflected rays. But she had shrunk 
into the deepest shadow, and remained there resolutely. 

To attract her towards that window, to look on the 
face he adored without even knowing, became for him 
the main object in life. Indeed, he forgot all else, 
save that he was pledged to her, that he belonged to 
her, and that he therefore had a claim upon her. 

“I have kept my promise,” he said; and got no 
further, since no thought existed in him beyond that 
paramount one of seeing her. 

She neither spoke nor moved. 

“ I have obeyed you,” he went on, 46 not so much 
because my word was given as because it was given—to 
you.” 

In her muteness there seemed to be a reproach. He 
added: 


105 


106 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


64 But if it had not been for your upraised hand, I 
would have said too much—from ignorance.” 

A slight tremor shook her, or at least he fancied so. 
That idea gave him his line of argument: 

“ When I agreed not to ask questions, I expected 
you to guide me. Unless I am prompted, how can I 
be of use in a tragedy whose parts are known to every¬ 
body except myself? I prefer not to understand—if I 
may see through your eyes and be guided by your hand. 
But if you abandon me to myself, to my ignorance, 
why—I shall fail.” 

She took a step forward, only to shrink still farther 
back. There was a brief silence, infinitely sweet to 
him : for he knew that she was about to speak. 

“ You must not fail,” she said. 

“ With your help I shall not.” He drew imper¬ 
ceptibly nearer. “ Tell me what I must do—though I 
need not be told why I do it.” 

The moon had risen a little higher; the court was 
filled with radiance as a great white panel of cold, 
clear light was dashed across the opposite wall. A 
cloud must have slipped away at that moment, to ex¬ 
plain the suddenness of the apparition; the brilliant 
space kept spreading swiftly down, as if thrown by a 
living hand, yet remained graven there, splendid and 
eternal. The girl could be seen almost distinctly—all, 
save her face. 

And he must break upon such a scene, must dispel 
such magic charm, must offend his new-born love, and 
perhaps crush out any promise of sentiment which 
might have arisen in her—by narrating episodes, by 


A RAY OF MOONLIGHT 


107 


framing questions? The thought was intolerable; he 
cast it from him so absolutely, so finally, that he forgot 
the very facts with which he was to have dealt. If she 
had asked him why he had sought her, he could now 
have said only that it was to declare his love. 

Yet he dared not rudely tear the exquisite gossamer 
of this living dream by so much as a word. 

It was she who broke in upon the spell, but did not 
break it. 

46 You are to tell me what has happened,” she said 
hurriedly, in a stifled voice. 

By her quickened respiration—before, she had 
breathed inaudibly, like one in suspense or apprehen¬ 
sion—he could not doubt that she had read his soul. 

The while, he had continued to draw nearer; not 
step by step, but inch by inch, with cautious motions 
and without a sound. He courted the shadows, as she 
had done, so as to pass unobserved; he wondered if 
she could count his mad heart-beats, as he did; he 
lowered his voice so that the lesser distance should not 
allow it to be louder in her ears. 

46 What has happened elsewhere than here—does it 
matter?” He had given no pledge about this, and he 
would not obey. He would not destroy the beauty of 
those moments; nor could he believe that she would 
have him do so. “ I have things to tell; but not what 
you ask.” 

She looked up. Until then, her eyes had been down¬ 
cast, except for swift glances; but now she looked fully 
at him. He had a sensation of reeling—reeling in an 
infinite ecstasy. 


108 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

“1 would tell you,” he said, “of a heart which 
beats only for you, of a life which is meant but to 
serve you, of a soul which belongs to you.* 1 

Her eyes remained on him. tie could feel the in¬ 
tensity of their splendour, he could see them flash in 
an indignation rendering her all the more glorious, 
while singularly formidable. 

“Who are you, who dare speak to me so?” she 
asked in a quivering undertone. 

“I am one,” he said quickly, seizing upon the 
opportunity offered, “ who has crossed the seas on what 
appeared to be a mad venture. Destiny was guiding 
me—to you. I answered the remote call of blood, of 
old French blood, from days forgotten by many, which 
lived afresh in me because I had a part to play beside 
you.” 

She made no movement of protest, but listened 
wonderingly. 

“Although an American,” he said, “I am the 
rightful Count de Laurency.” 

Her breath, as she caught it, was almost a stifled cry. 

“ But do I need ancestry, to prove I am worthy of 
serving you? Did you not accept my service, while 
aware only that I was your slave ?” 

He paused; and as she said nothing, he resumed 
more naturally, and with all the ardour of his being : 

“I am serving you, I am keeping my pledge; and 
I shall serve you, and keep faith with you, to the end. 
What I ask in return is that my service may not finish 
with the task at hand, but may last for ever. All that 
I have, all that I am-” 



A RAY OF MOONLIGHT 


109 


He heard her moan, crying softly; he saw her slim 
fingers intertwined, writhing against the whiteness of 
her dress. 

44 You don’t know what you ask!” she murmured. 
66 Even if you had the right tc speak so—you don’t 
know what you ask!” 

64 Have I then a serious rival?” In his anguish he 
had raised his voice. 

At these words, she quivered as if mortally offended, 
and took a step forward, nearer the moonlit window. 
He could almost detect her features—those features 
he adored and had never plainly seen. 

44 Is this what I must endure,” she said, 44 because 
I called on you in my distress ? If that other Count de 
Laurency were here, whom you scornfully set aside, he 
would not suffer this!” 

Repressing his fury, he spoke coldly : 

44 You forget that it is on me you called for pro¬ 
tection. That gives me the right to serve you, at 
least to-night. Whoever would intervene between us, 
whether my cousin de Laurency or another, would 
have to deal not with you, but with me. Remember, 
it is my right, and I will not renounce it. To-morrow 
I may beg; but to-night I command.” 

44 Command—you?” she exclaimed. 44 A thousand 
deaths, sooner!” 

44 To listen to you now would be disobeying the 
mandate I hold from you. If I am serving you, that 
is your affair; loving you, is my own.’ 

44 1 will not be served by a stranger who dares to 
force himself on me, to talk to me of love! she pro- 


110 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


tested, in growing anger. 44 When you came back to 

me, I thought it was to ask advice, to—to-” Her 

voice broke. 44 Is there no help in all the world? That 
after others, you also—you- 99 

44 Have others asked nothing but to serve you?” he 
said very softly. 

She was silent. He could see the heaving of her 
breast as she struggled against her emotion. Falling 
upon his knees, he took her hand and raised it to his 
lips. 

44 Remember one thing alone, of all I have said,” 
he continued. 44 I have the right to serve you to-night, 
and I crave the right to serve you for ever.” 

44 Again ?” 

With this cry she stepped back, tearing away her 
hand : she had let it linger in his, as if unconscious 
of its being there. 

For the first time, his wild passion allowed him a 
moment of clear vision. He had sought to capture her, 
with or without her consent, not counting the chances 
of victory or of failure, but speaking because he had 
to speak, leaping into the imperative conflict between 
their wills, feeling that he would win against all odds 
because he must win to live. 

But now he realised that he stood a true chance for 
winning—provided he made no further mention of love 
until he had either succeeded or failed in what he had 
undertaken. 

44 You were right,” he said. 44 1 came for advice.” 

A faint sound of slow, muffled footsteps, passing 
without, reached their ears. She moved forward, and 




A RAY OF MOONLIGHT 111 

stopped, all attention. The sound went by, and died 
away. 

But he had been unconscious of danger. For she 
had approached the window, and stood within its light. 
The rays of the moon played upon her, and he was 
gazing upon her face. 


Chapter 13 


Elvira’s Advice 


Irene, leaning against the window, turned her eyes 
towards the garden, and stood there for some moments 
longer, as if unconscious of her lover’s gaze. He could 
not speak : for though he knew she trusted him, since 
all shade of fear and hesitation had gone, he knew he 
could not trust himself. 

“ You were to tell what has happened,” she said. 

He^continued to gaze, silent, absorbed, and as if not 
understanding. She added : 

fifi After we parted—I heard voices-” 

“ The Marquis and Gazeaux,” Gilbert answered, 
making an effort to adopt the tone she was imposing, 
“ have plotted to put either de Laurency or myself in 
a place they mentioned. If he is already there, I must 
free him. If it is for me, then I must know what the 
trap is. They spoke of—some sort of dressing-room.” 

Her face was turned to him; her lips parted, but 
remained as if frozen. 

“ Why a dressing-room?” Gilbert continued. 
“ Unless it is next to the room of the Marquis him¬ 
self? Oh, I remember the name! The Chinese 
Dressing-Room. ” 

“Impossible!” Irene exclaimed, her eyes wide with 
terror in a face pale as the moonbeams. 

“That is what I heard them say.” 

112 



ELVIRA’S ADVICE 


113 


44 But the Chinese Dressing-Room is never used! 
There is a mystery about it which nobody knows, 
except the Marquis.” 

44 And Gazeaux.” 

44 I have seen it just once, for an instant; it is always 
locked. If what the Marquis has intimated is true— 
but no, no, this is impossible! The repairs have never 
been made.” 

44 Repairs ?” 

44 Yes. It could not work, as it is.” 

44 The Chinese Dressing-Room could not work?” 
Gilbert asked. 

She did not reply. 

44 Tell me how to find it.” 

44 Never!” She shuddered as she spoke. 

44 De Laurency may be there already.” 

Her only answer was an impatient, rebellious shrug. 

44 Or if not, I shall be enticed towards it, somehow.” 

Slowly, she looked away from him. 

44 You will tell me the way?” he urged. 

44 No.” Her voice was thick with emotion. 44 1 shall 
lead you.” 

44 Not at the risk of your life!” 

44 My life—do you think I value it?” she exclaimed, 
with infinite bitterness; then, softening : 44 Are you 
not risking yours for me?” 

44 Perhaps it will prove less tragic than you think.” 

44 So He may say—so She may say. But in the 
end-” 

44 You believe, then, that such crimes are possible?” 

44 What is not possible, at the Manor of Cour-de- 

8 



114 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


France?” she asked mournfully; and, leaning her head 
upon her hand, and averting her face to the wall, she 
wept in silence. 

Presently she appealed to him : 

“ I think I shall not be in danger unless I cross the 
wishes of the Marquis; he is mad from vanity, from 
arrogance, from thirst after an iron domination not in 
keeping with our century. He might, on the whole, 
have been kind to slaves; but he cannot brook inde¬ 
pendence. He may kill me for not remaining bound to 
that chair, as readily as for guiding you to—to the 
torture-chamber. He will know that you released me.” 

“ Why should he?” A thought had suddenly come 
to Gilbert. “ He had ordered me not to leave that 
black-draped hall. If he finds I have gone, he will 
suspect me, you, everybody. Let us return; let me 
pretend to bind you in the chair; then I shall wait as 
if I suspected nothing. When he comes, I shall throw 
him off the trail.” 

She hesitated. 

“ Unless you are safer here than in the passages, 
where the Marquis might meet us,” he said. 

“No; you don’t know him.” Her voice showed 
weariness, discouragement, utter helplessness. “He is 
as like to be here as anywhere. I was thinking that 
while we waited, there, for the Marquis to come—per¬ 
haps the Count de Laurency-” 

He had to quell the jealous throbbing of his pulse; 
and she did not continue. 

“ I see no other possibility for rescuing him,” he 
said. 



ELVIRA’S ADVICE 115 

They looked into each other’s eyes. She spoke un¬ 
certainly : 

“ If he—de Laurency—is already there, nothing can 
save him. But I believe—your danger—greater than 
his. My thought was—that he might ”—she looked 
away, and breathed almost inaudibly— e< might save 
you.” 

66 Where you have trusted your life to me, do you 
think I would owe my safety to another?” 

He took her hand and raised it to his lips ; it lingered 
there an instant before she drew it softly back and re¬ 
leased it from his grasp. 

“ Let us go,” she whispered. 

A prayer was upon his lips—a prayer to flee with 
him beyond the reach of these incredible threats, 
beyond this maze of fantastic dangers. He knew, now, 
as plainly as if she had told him, that she could not be 
the daughter of this insane Marquis, and still less of 
that ominous Marchioness. Who might she be, whom 
the Marquis was at the same time menacing and aveng¬ 
ing, and whose loss the Spanish woman had resolved to 
compass ? A relative whom he loved in defiance of her ? 
Why, then, should she not flee ? 

6 4 It is not easy for a man to cope with a situation 
of which he understands nothing,” Gilbert exclaimed 
impatiently. 

44 Perhaps it would be less easy if he did,” Irene re¬ 
joined so gently that, filled with remorse, he said no 
more. 

Some minutes later, she was seated in the arm-chair 
behind the curtains, as if bound, though really free; 


116 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


and he stood idly, with an assumed air of boredom, 
near the black-draped mockery of a throne. 

His plan was simple : to talk the Marquis into a re¬ 
assured complacent mood, then start him on a false 
trail, and slip away to the Chinese Dressing-Room 
under the guidance of Irene, who would, after all, be 
safest near him. 

Their present separation, of only a few yards, seemed 
an intolerable parting, in that house honeycombed with 
secret entrances and passages, all permeated with the 
sense of mystery and with the gnawing lust of crime. 
This waiting, too, was unbearable, when he wanted to 
fight out the battle for her with his hands—and withal 
match his wits, for her sake, against the craftiest 
statesmen of the world. 

The sound of a woman’s footfall, behind the cur¬ 
tains at the farthermost end of the room, made Gilbert 
start. A moment later, the tall, dark form of the 
Spanish Marchioness was before him. 

“ You have not seen the Marquis?” she asked. 

fi< He was with me here, some time ago,” Gilbert 
answered, hoping that the distant flare of the single 
torch had been too dim to reveal his discomfiture. 

6 ‘ And left no message—no orders?” 

“ Only to myself, that I was not to stir.” 

“ You waited ?” 

“ Here I am.” 

There was no way for him to guess how much she 
knew, nor the nature of her errand; denials, acknow¬ 
ledgments, initiatives being all dangerous, he could 
only preserve a passive guard. 


ELVIRA’S ADVICE 117 

Her steely-brown eyes had glided away from him, 
and were examining the room. 

“Why!” she exclaimed, “who has been making 
alterations ? That old wooden block, which I have seen 
in the window-corner ever since I first came to the 
Manor of Cour-de-France—it was still there at sunset, 
and even later. Where is it now ?” 

The block, which he had not been strong enough to 
move alone, had, indeed, disappeared. Of course, this 
might be the work of the Count de Laurency. If 
not- 

“ Has it really gone?” Gilbert asked, turning away 
from the light, and pretending to peer into the shadows. 
“ I am quite sure I saw it.” 

She seemed to have forgotten her question, and was 
indifferent to his reply. Slowly, as if wearily, she 
approached the throne-like arm-chair draped in black, 
crowned with black, surrounded by black; she placed 
in it her black-robed figure. The picture she made was 
impressive and regal in the mediaeval sense, when all 
thoughts and deeds were permissible to those clad with 
authority. 

“We are leading an impossible life, to-night,” she 
sighed. 6 6 The poor Marquis—but won’t you sit down ? ’ ’ 

The seat she offered him was near the throne. 

“ I prefer this,” said Gilbert, drawing up a stool 
such as a duchess was wont to use in the presence of a 
queen. 

“Have you any influence over the Marquis?” she 
asked abruptly and in so marked a way that this ques¬ 
tion appeared as the object of her coming. 



118 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


fi< I scarcely know him! ” Gilbert protested. 

44 Yes; that is why you might influence him. This 
little joke of ours has perhaps gone rather far. He will 
not listen to reason from me. From you, he might.” 

44 If you will tell me what I should say?” 

“You promise to say it?” 

44 Let me hear, first.” 

44 There is not much to tell. He had planned a little 
comedy with a high moral, for the purpose of teaching 
a lesson to a person more foolish than guilty.” 

44 I know; the Baron de Vernac,” Gilbert said, as 
she paused. 

44 Not the Baron de Vernac,” Marchioness Elvira 
corrected sharply. 44 He was to play the part of victim 
so that the—the other—might be impressed.” 

44 The Count de Laurency, you mean?” 

44 Not the Count de Laurency.” She fixed him with 
her steely-brown eyes, moody as if a breath had 
tarnished them. 

He understood now. The object was to discover 
whether he had any knowledge of the girl in white. 

44 Unless you mean Gazeaux, I cannot imagine,” he 
said in a bored tone, as if such an accumulation of per¬ 
plexities had killed all curiosity. 

Promptly dropping that phase of the subject, she 
continued smoothly: 

44 The idea may or may not have been good, to begin 
with ; jokes are delicate matters, where personalities are 
concerned.” 

Gilbert, meanwhile, had decided that he should not 
be too ignorant; an admission or two on immaterial 


ELVIRA’S ADVICE 


119 


points might help to an intelligent concealment of 
Irene. 

44 Suppose de Vernac is incompletely drugged? He 
will remember later. Else he may be told ; such things 
leak out.” 

“Drugged!” exclaimed the Spanish Marchioness. 
44 What gives you that idea ?” 

44 His mien. I saw him enter, and I saw him collapse. 
You saw him as he lay on the floor, in the next room. 
You surely can’t call that sleep?” 

44 Oh—de Vernac-” she shrugged. 44 What 

matters more, is my poor brother-in-law, whose ex¬ 
citement has reached an unfortunate pitch. His heart 
is so kind; I have told you he is an angel. With all 
his misfortunes-” 

44 Really, these mysteries are beyond me,” Gilbert 
interrupted. 44 You speak as if I knew your brother- 
in-law. So I may—but without knowing who he is.” 

“ Oh—I forgot, you are an American. We, before 
visiting a family, learn the connections. It’s stupid and 
old-fashioned, of course, but very convenient. I 
thought you would understand, when I mentioned I was 
the Marchioness Elvira. Who, then, did you take me 
for ?” 

As he hesitated, her laugh died away, her eyes grew 
hard. In an altered tone, she concluded : 

44 Years ago I married the elder brother of the 
present Marquis de La Villeratelle. He enjoyed the 
title for only a few months; then died and left me little 
besides his name. The bulk of the property went to the 
new Marquis, for I had no heir. It is true I have my 





120 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


estates in Spain; but Spanish lands—well! Besides, I 
have a taste for France, and for this Manor, which 
should have been mine.” 

44 I indeed took you for its mistress,” Gilbert 
admitted with a great air of innocence. 

A blaze of concentrated hatred was his reward : 

44 But for the kindness of the Marquis, whom others 
may traduce but whom I defend, I should be less than 
a slave; I should be denied the right even to dwell 
in this Manor, where I was welcome during years of 
childhood, and which I ruled while my married life 
lasted.” 

Scarcely listening, Gilbert commented to himself : 

44 So this Spanish cousin and sister-in-law has 
wrenched the control of the house from its master, and 
from his daughter, its true mistress; or perhaps she 
had not yet entirely succeeded, and the events of to¬ 
night were meant to make victory complete.” 

44 You are not even listening,” Marchioness Elvira 
broke off. 44 So much for reminiscences! Yet—would 
you care to be in my place, Mr. Lawrence?” 

Her manner, her whole air had changed; all trace of 
a challenge, all bitterness over grievances, had gone; 
her face had returned to a noble beauty, if not to per¬ 
fection of line; the purity of a nun-like vocation illu¬ 
minated her features. Her head, held high, was thrown 
so as to catch the light at a desired angle. She moved 
a finely-modelled arm to rearrange her dress, and left 
its rounded whiteness there, well in evidence. Artifi¬ 
cial though every detail might be, Gilbert could not 
resist the fascination. 


ELVIRA’S ADVICE 


121 


44 I wanted,” she said in her low, sweet, bell-like 
tones, 44 I wanted to speak quite frankly with you about 
the Marquis. He entered with a will into that idea of 
a comedy. But I fear Gazeaux may have pushed him 
too far. He does not suspect, as I do, that Gazeaux 
may be mad.” 

44 So—if anything goes wrong—it will be the fault of 
Gazeaux ?” 

44 Whose could it be else?” she asked, displaying 
surprise. 44 Have you not heard me say that the Mar¬ 
quis is kind and charitable, that he is intelligent and 
highly educated? Who could know him better than 
I? But because he is so good, he sometimes allows 
himself to be influenced so that his judgment is 
blurred.” 

44 At least,” Gilbert reflected inwardly, 44 they do 
not suspect me of overhearing that conversation.” 

She leaned forward; the scent of a strange perfume, 
as from a rare hot-house, went to his head. 

44 Your father was the friend of the Marquis,” she 
said. 44 Are not you, too, his friend ? Speak to him ; 
advise him to renounce this play; tell him the Baron 
de Vernac is ill; tell him—tell—oh, how should I, a 
mere woman, counsel you, a man with all the wisdom of 
America behind you ? If you will only speak to him as 
I know you can, you will avert this trouble, this—this 
tragedy.” 

44 Tragedy!” he exclaimed. 44 You yourself have 
admitted no more than a comedy. Now you say this— 
tragedy—can be averted by me?” 

He did not attempt to conceal his eagerness; the 


122 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


perfume had gone to his head, and perhaps her words, 
her look, her manner : he was no longer himself. 

44 I am relieved that you should take the matter 
seriously,” she said, her steely-brown eyes large and 
filled with wonder. 44 I indeed thought you worthy of 
confidence. Speak to the Marquis. And though he 
pretend to anger—especially if he pretend to anger— 
you must insist.” 

44 After all, the plan seems good,” he said. 44 Better 
than-” 

44 Than what?” she asked swiftly, as he stopped. 

44 Than any which occurred to me while you spoke,” 
he replied smoothly. 

He had drawn back, the scent had faded from his 
nostrils, her spell was dissolved. 

44 I shall leave you, then,” she said; and rising 
majestically, directed her steps towards that section of 
the curtains which concealed Irene. 



Chapter 14 


Revelation 


There was no time for reflection. Gilbert spoke 
quickly, having a care to maintain a casual tone : 

44 Shall I go with you, Marchioness?” 

Elvira turned; she had almost reached the draperies. 

44 No! Why?” she asked. 

44 To speak to the Marquis.” 

44 Did he not order you to remain here?” 

44 I believe this way would be the shortest,” Gilbert 
remarked, instead of answering, as he crossed to the 
farthermost end of the hall. 

44 Why are you going?” she called after him. 

Gilbert walked on, as if he had not heard. 

44 He said you were to remain!” the Marchioness 
cried out, and changed her direction to hurry after him. 

44 Yes,” Gilbert assented. 44 But I prefer to obey 
your commands. Do you object?” 

44 I? When did I-” 

She was in full pursuit. As he still did not stop, she 
said : 

44 The Marquis might be angered. He is accus¬ 
tomed to being obeyed. Suppose—suppose I send him 
to you?” 

Gilbert parted the curtains; he seemed to hesitate. 

44 I might at least accompany you,” he said. 

44 You wish to obey my commands? Then wait!” 
she said. 


123 


124 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


And, unaware that he had decoyed her, she smiled at 
his ready compliance as she passed through. 

It would have been utmost rashness for him to glance 
towards the spot where Irene was concealed. A ques¬ 
tion which arose in his mind helped him to control his 
features so that no sign should betray relief. 

At first, he had supposed the Spanish Marchioness 
sought to gain time, like himself; in which case, their 
policy being the same, he might do well to revise his. 
Then he concluded that she was driving him on to anger 
the Marquis, in order that he might be lost completely. 

He recalled a detail of his conversation with the 
Count de Laurency, in the bedroom on the inner court. 
When relating that scene to me, Gilbert Lawrence had 
not mentioned it; he brought it in only later, as intro¬ 
duction to the episode now about to begin. Perhaps 
it had assumed small significance at the time; the Count 
de Laurency took it lightly, and Gilbert himself prob¬ 
ably had no clear idea of its importance, but was 
prompted by the insight which prepares for sound 
action when opportunity offers. 

“ If the Marquis is really mad,” Gilbert had said, 
“ then we are fools to argue with him.” 

“ Shall we rather be criminals to abet a crime?” the 
Count de Laurency had asked ; he was just beginning to 
be convinced. 

66 No; for we shall try to lead him.” 

Try and be welcome ! But remember he is tricky.” 

As this came back to Gilbert, he told himself that it 
was strange the Marchioness Elvira should have advo¬ 
cated argument. It was true she denied insanity, and 


REVELATION 


125 


called her brother-in-law a saint, an angel, and other 
unearthly things. What could be accomplished by 
angering a madman—what, beyond ruining the cause 
advocated? But the resources of assenting persuasion 
were limitless. 

Either by coincidence, or else sent by her, the Mar¬ 
quis parted the curtains where Elvira had disappeared. 
He was preoccupied over the headsman’s axe, which he 
carried. Alternately he would swing it at the end of a 
free and powerful arm which bobbed with his halting 
gait, in an eccentric, doubly menacing sort of way; and 
then he would stop to contemplate it with the mild 
interest of an eminent specialist, peering closely with 
his dim eyes behind their gleaming glasses, raising it 
to test its balance or else to feel the polished edge. 

“Oh—you!” he said, perceiving Gilbert. “Yes, 
yes. I had ordered you not to move. At least, you 
can obey; and so perhaps you are to be trusted.” 

“ The weapon is evidently in good condition,” 
Gilbert said. “ But where is the other?” 

“ Other? What other? Why another?” the Mar¬ 
quis queried, his face clouding. “You mean the one 
which was beside the block?” 

“ I mean the pair, wherever they may come from.” 
Gilbert was not to be trapped into an admission. 

“Oh!” The expression of the Marquis cleared. 
“ I understand. A pair—in case this one chips or 
dulls. Or the handle might break. Such things have 
happened. Yes, yes, I must run no risks.” 

“ Where is the weapon for your adversary?” Gilbert 
asked calmly. “ A duel with battle-axes, between 


126 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


noblemen trained to that sport, would be a finer dis¬ 
play of skill and of courage than a duel with shot-guns. 
No more deadly, either, and less dependent on luck. 
Rut unless the axes are matched with a care as nice as 
if they were swords, then the chances would be singu¬ 
larly uneven.” 

The Marquis had the air of close, unbelieving atten¬ 
tion peculiar to the deaf. 

6i Have I heard aright? A duel!” he exclaimed. 
<e With that scoundrel, that contemptible cur-” 

“ Too great a wretch to be killed according to the 
laws of honour ?” 

44 Honour ! He is dishonoured.” 

44 What! Because he has admired a woman’s 
eyes?” 

44 He is en carencel ” the Marquis screamed. 44 Do 
you not know what that is, sir ? A gentleman who has 
once evaded a duel is unworthy of being challenged 
again. One could not soil one’s hands to face him 
with a weapon. He refused to meet a broken-hearted 
father, whose only son he was suspected of killing-” 

44 The late Count de Laurency, and his heir!” 
Gilbert exclaimed, suddenly recalling words spoken by 
his kinsman, the self-styled Count de Laurency. 
44 Then I, too, find an enemy in him.” 

44 Not proved; not proved,” the Marquis said 
pettishly. 44 You can’t avenge the family until you 
have produced your papers; and all that’s positively 
known about the affair is that he refused to meet the 
late Count de Laurency, and so disqualified himself. 
My case is proved, though; or it soon will be. I can- 




REVELATION 


127 


not honour him with a duel; but I can prepare a little 
scene. A comedy, like our old friend Hamlet, only 
the principals themselves shall be the players, without 
knowing it. And if—if-” 

His eyes had grown wild, his voice had risen. He 
controlled himself, grew wary, and purred : 

44 We shall see, my friend. If we wait, we shall 
see.” 

Deliberately, he rested his headsman’s axe against 
the throne-like chair, the while watching for any move 
to snatch the axe away from him. He took his seat as 
the Spanish Marchioness had done. 

This time, Gilbert preferred to stand. 

44 I am not surprised,” the Marquis began in a low, 
concentrated tone, 44 that you should be disposed to 
advise and to criticise. You must admit that if you 
have entered upon domestic complications which may 
justly be termed unusual, your own arrival was not 
exactly conventional . 5 9 

Gilbert bowed, and said nothing. 

44 I shall put a case to you—as a suggestion,” the 
Marquis continued, settling down and drawing closely 
about him the folds of his cape. 44 Take a man who 
bears an ancient name and enjoys an amount of wealth 
not to be despised; marry him, late in life, to a woman 
having the advantages of youth and beauty, but being 
his inferior in every respect save one.” 

44 She was of humble origin?” Gilbert asked, think¬ 
ing he understood, while the Marquis sat watching him, 
as if resolved to say no more until the right word had 
been uttered. 



128 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 Wrong!” the Marquis caught him up; and for¬ 
getting the impersonal form he had chosen for his 
narrative, he pursued: 

44 She was my inferior in all except lineage. There is 
no older and nobler blood in Europe than that of her 
father, the Count, and of her mother, the Countess. 
Both had quite the correct notions for persons of 
breeding. But their daughter had been most extra¬ 
ordinarily educated. For her, a man was a man, and 
a woman a woman, regardless of family. Strange, 
strange!” 

“You noticed this while courting her?” 

44 There was no courting. She was still in the con¬ 
vent when our marriage was arranged. The match 
could not have been pronounced otherwise than 
eminently suitable. 

44 We met for the ceremony of our engagement, and 
I saw her several times again before the marriage, 
which I chose to have performed here, as is customary 
among the La Villeratelles. Marchioness Elvira, my 
esteemed sister, left when the guests did. 

44 1 had not failed to observe the shyness of my 
bride; and so, to put her at ease, when we were alone, 

I began to sound in her dainty ears the noble syllables 
of ancient patronymics and illustrious alliances. To 
my immense surprise, I found that she did not care. I 
tried to teach her better. She proved rebellious, and 
we parted in anger.” 

Gilbert listened, speechlessly amazed. 

66 Huring what should have been our honeymoon, we 
saw little of each other. We met only to quarrel. 


REVELATION 129 

Besides being unintelligent, she was stubborn. When 
the time came for Marchioness Elvira to return, we 
were scarcely on speaking terms. Thanks to my sister- 
in-law, we effected an arrangement which rendered life 
possible for a good many months. But we have never 
advanced. It has been a marriage which is no 
marriage.’ ’ 

“ So the Marchioness is not your wife?” 

“ She is, and she is not.” 

66 Then-” Gilbert’s eyes were on the axe, and 

he repressed a shudder. 66 Why do you let her remain ? 
The simplest solution would be separation.” 

“ After what she said to me ? Ah, no! That would 
be too much to her liking. I have retained her here as 
the first part of retribution. For there is more to tell. 
Listen. 

‘ 6 I might have waived the question of erroneous 
ideas. After all, though ill-bred, she was well-born. 
One can forgive much in a woman of rank. But do 
you know-” 

He peered craftily in all directions, and sank his 
voice: 

“ Do you know, one night when I forced my way 
into her room, resolved to give up arguments rendered 
useless by her stupidity: why, she said I was mad, and 
drove me out and locked the door on me! She had 
always locked her door, since our quarrel on the very 
first night, when she fled and barricaded herself, leaving 
me in this very hall, which had a different aspect then. 
But on that particular night I am mentioning, her 
ladyship, seeing me really within her room for the first 

9 




ISO 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


time, said she might have a mad husband, but she 
wouldn’t have mad—well! you understand. She drove 
me out, threatening to kill me. Elvira heard it all, 
and she has kept a careful watch ever since, so I should 
not be killed or poisoned.” 

A stifled moan, coming from the draperies, turned 
Gilbert’s blood to ice. For now, at last, the revela¬ 
tion was complete. 

The deformed figure crouched in the great, throne¬ 
like chair; the face which could be suave, suspicious, or 
clown-like by turns, was thrust forward, all keenness 
and observation. 

“ Temptation came to her who had mocked me; the 
devil in person entered my Manor of Cour-de-France, 
bent on betraying me. The Baron de Vernac won her 
ladyship’s approval, forsooth ! Can the husband, who 
has failed, bear that? On his own grounds, too, 
where he disposes of sovereign rights? Here! Read 
this.” 

Fumbling in his bosom, he drew out a crumpled 
parchment, centuries old. 

66 One night last week, when I had again been 
insulted as I tapped for admission at her door, I retired 
among relics of my ancestors. Do you see what I 
unearthed—what had escaped my attention, and pro¬ 
phetically came before my eyes at that time? It con¬ 
fers upon the ruling Lord of La Villeratelle the right 
of life and death, of haute , moyenne et hasse justice , 
on his grounds of the Manor of Cour-de-France—once 
royal property, retaining its prerogatives. 

“This parchment,” the Marquis continued, “ de- 


REVELATION 131 

livered to my ancestors, inherited by me, and coming 
miraculously to hand at such a juncture, taught me 
what I was to do. First, the death of the one who had, 
or who would have, dishonoured me. He could not 
meet me as nobleman to nobleman in a duel; so his 
head must fall beneath the axe wielded by my steward, 
a descendant of headsmen as I am a descendant of 
sovereign lords. Next, her death if she protested or 
grew pale from guilt; for she must be present at the 
execution. Elvira, dear soul, thought it a joke, a 
comedy, as I told her—as I told others. If I have 
confided the truth to you, it is because I believe you 
to be my friend.” 

Gilbert, struggling for self-control, and not daring 
to suggest the parchment might be fraudulent, caught 
at a thread : 

“ So much your friend,” he responded, “ that I draw 
your attention to an important legal point. You dis¬ 
pose of the rights of life and death upon your grounds. 
Well and good. But if you order a death in your 
house, or on the strength of a sentence passed within 
your house, then you become a murderer.” 

“ What’s that?” shrieked the Marquis. 

“ Read your parchment. You are sovereign lord 
over your grounds, but no house is mentioned. If you 
attempt to carry out your plans, you will be subject 
to the guillotine yourself. A nice end for the last 
Lord of La Villeratelle ! ” 

The features of the Marquis seemed to grow larger, 
with the intense beacon kindled in his blazing eyes; his 
form loomed massive and threatening like that of a 


132 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

giant. He drew himself together, as if crouching to 
spring : 

44 With whom are your sympathies, Gilbert Law¬ 
rence, son of Charles, of the old line of the Counts of 
Laurency?” he thundered. 44 With whom are your 
sympathies: with her, or with me?” 

44 With her!” shouted Gilbert, threatening in his 
turn. 44 My sympathies are with that woman you have 
not named while pretending to describe. For it is 
you who have deceived her trust and betrayed her 
love!” 

The Marquis had remained rigidly attentive. His 
fury melted away; he crumpled into a pathetic heap, as 
if lacking strength to rise or to speak. 

44 Yes, yes,” he muttered presently. 44 Perhaps you 
are right. I repeated the story as it was told to me. 
There may be right and wrong on both sides.” 

He got up very slowly; stood quivering and hesitat¬ 
ing for some moments; took up the axe, put it down 
again, finally shouldered it: and limped away, a 
drooping, vanquished figure of bitter woe and helpless 
humiliation. 


Chapter 15 The Chinese Dressing-Room 

Instantly Irene glided out from among the draperies. 
Her dress was no whiter than her cheeks; she tottered 
against the throne which the Marquis had just vacated. 
Gilbert took her hand. 

44 Come,” l;e said. 

“ But-” she began, and was unable to continue. 

44 You must come.” 

44 But-” 

“ You will tell me later; now, come.” 

He tried to lead her away. She found strength to 
rebel, though scarcely able to stand. 

44 To the Chinese Dressing-Room,” he said, articu¬ 
lating slowly the syllables of that name she dreaded; 
for he hoped to dispel the new anguish under which she 
laboured. 44 You promised to take me to the Chinese 
Dressing-Room. ” 

As she still resisted, he urged : 

44 If you break your promise to me, why should I 
keep mine to you?” 

44 What matter, now?” she found voice to moan. 

44 You have heard—you know-” 

44 1 have heard far more than is true,” Gilbert inter¬ 
rupted, 44 and I know nothing beyond what you may 
wish me to know. Will you come?” 

44 He will kill us both!” she wept aloud. 

133 





134 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ Perhaps, if we allow him enough time. Instead, 
we can make a fight of it, and put the chances on our 
side, too.” 

Tightening his hold upon her hand, he drew her 
towards him. 

Her eyes sought his. 

“ You do not—believe him?” she faltered. 

44 What do I care for a madman’s ravings?” 

His gaze, fixed upon her, did not see her; he was 
trying to read her soul. So doing, he revealed part of 
his own. 

44 Yet you do care!” she protested. 

44 For all that was said, I care less than nothing,” he 
evaded. 

44 And for what may have been left unsaid-?” 

He bowed his head in misery at being understood. 

44 You don’t answer?” she went on. 44 Then you 
doubt me?” 

44 I have a single question to ask,” he said hoarsely. 

She freed her hand from his. 

44 Ask it,” she breathed. 

44 This so-called Count de Laurency was your cham¬ 
pion before I came. Did you love him ?” 

44 No, no!” she said intensely. 44 He is nothing to 
me, I swear it by—by-” 

44 By our love ?” Gilbert whispered. 44 You have no 
husband, and it is your right to love.” 

She watched him, wonderingly, as the dawn of a new 
hope broke upon her pure features. 

44 Come,” he said; and, putting his arm about her, 
drew her into the shelter of the draperies. 



THE CHINESE DRESSING-ROOM 135 

When he stopped, ignorant as to his direction, she 
made a motion as if seeking to be released. Instead, 
she grasped his hand more firmly, and, having been led 
unresistingly, she took command, conducting him 
through darkness and turning ways until they reached 
a corner-room unfamiliar to Gilbert. 

Beyond, a species of cabinet projected towards the 
open country, visible through an unshuttered window. 
The glow from the sky fell brightly on the fields, and 
filtered into the limited space of that small, far room; 
a soft breeze brought its burden of clean air, intoxicat¬ 
ing after the sickened atmosphere of the death-chamber 
and the curtained passages. 

Gilbert and Irene looked out upon the serene, 
delightful waste of earth and trees and moonlit sky, 
merged into one picture and, as it were, into one 
element; they stood silent, like children awed by their 
first conception of nature, and hand-in-hand like 
childish sweethearts. And when they spoke, it was 
with the simple faith of childhood : 

“You will not believe what he said?” 

“ Not a word !” he responded ardently. 

6 6 There were true words, but he made falsehoods of 
them.” 

“ Don’t think of him—think of me!” 

“ But I am his wife.” 

“ Such marriages are annulled in Rome.” He 
allowed her an instant for a reply. 44 When I spoke 
so as to anger you, I did not know who you were; and 
you thought yourself bound to another. But you are 
free; and I am here to protect you. I came across the 


136 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


sea because you needed me, and because I was destined 
to love you.” 

“ Why tell me of love, when all I have learned of 
love is—that!” With her free hand she made a hope¬ 
less gesture towards the portion of the Manor which 
lay behind them. 44 I fancied I loved him, when, on 
leaving the convent, I was told I must marry. I fancied 
I loved him when I swore to it at the altar. That very 
night, I knew I had never loved and would never love. 
I had only learned how to hate.” 

“ Yet you submitted?” 

“Submitted?” She threw back her head proudly. 

44 To his will—no ! To my fate—yes!” 

44 You might have left him.” 

44 To acknowledge my misery? Never!” 

Gilbert remembered that, in her sensitive pride, she 
would have forfeited his own assistance, rather than 
tell him her story or even tolerate that he should hear 
it from others. 

44 You cannot continue living in this mad-house,” 
he said. 

44 1 came to it of my own free will,” she sighed. 

44 So you may leave it of your free will too.” 

“Leave it—to go where? My father would never 
forgive such a scandal.” 

44 You have acknowledged nothing?” 

44 Nothing.” 

44 Nor even sought guidance?” 

44 Do I look as if I had?” she demanded. 

44 You have accepted it from me, in a way,” Gilbert 
said. 44 Will you go with me, if I promise not to 


THE CHINESE DRESSING-ROOM 137 


mention the word love again, until it comes in response 
to your wish?” 

“Yes, for I can trust you,” she answered, looking 
up to him. “ Let us go, wherever you will-” 

He turned, in immediate obedience. She held him 
back by the hand she still clasped : 

6( Only after we have saved de Vernac and made sure 
that de Laurency is warned.” 

“Must he always come between us?” Gilbert 
exclaimed. 

“ He cannot come between us,” Irene reproved her 
lover; but she alluded to the Marquis de La Villera- 
telle. “You say he is not my husband.” 

The fact that she had not so much as grasped his 
ill-advised allusion filled Gilbert with joy, and set his 
jealousy once again at rest. 

“My husband!” she continued, musing. “Some¬ 
times, when I have hated him most, I have dreamed of 
turning and facing him in his furies, and daring him 
to carry out his threats. It might have succeeded. I 
know he is cowardly; all his dangerous acts are under¬ 
handed ; he rarely grapples with a situation rising 
unexpectedly. He pores over it in solitude and mys¬ 
tery ; during that time, he is pathetic and deceitful, 
and often charming; he disarms criticism and opposi¬ 
tion by his infirmities and his affected patience; and 
then springs a treacherous scheme. If I ever came to 
assert myself, I am sure I could silence him. But 
after ? No; it is not worth the while. What a sorry 
victory over a madman! And he would get his venge¬ 
ance, secretly, infamously, when I was helpless and 



138 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


exhausted from the struggle. Some day, from self- 
respect—if any self-respect has survived these months 
of life not with him, but near him—I may rebel. But 
the price I shall be made to pay!” 

44 You are wrong to believe him all-powerful,” 
Gilbert said. 

44 The devil himself is not all-powerful,” Irene re¬ 
plied. 44 But where the forces of good leave evil free 
to act, the devil’s chances are infinite.” 

Gilbert had listened with all his heart and soul; but 
his hearing had registered a noise without analysing it. 
At first, it was like a series of sharp, dry blows struck 
on iron bars; then it was like the stirring or shuffling 
of irons. 

Unaware of it, Irene burst out, with a sob : 

44 Oh, the harm done in the world by the petty, 
ungenerous nature which pretends to sympathy while 
incapable of feeling; which insinuates itself into the 
confidence of unsuspicious spirits, to sound little secrets 
of no moment; and then concocts a vile scheme to 
destroy a character, a lying scheme woven from tiny 
particles of truths, each harmless until misinterpreted 
by baseness! ” 

The noise of stirring irons and of bars struck upon 
bars had grown louder, more persistent. 

She roused, listened acutely, and shuddered : 

44 The Chinese Dressing-Room! God help us, I 
had forgotten where we were!” 

Her agitation impressed Gilbert, though material 
signs had not mattered. He glanced about him; then, 
leaving her side, made a minute inspection. 


THE CHINESE DRESSING-ROOM 189 


The room was small, and quite commonplace in 
appearance. Its size and shape were similar to those 
of the postern by which the three cavaliers had entered 
the Manor. As well as could be judged, it lay at the 
easternmost end of the great northern suite, corre¬ 
sponding to the postern at the western end. One of 
the most embarrassing features about the Manor of 
Cour-de-France was the symmetry of a plan filled with 
surprises. 

This apartment, or closet, purported to be nothing 
more than a dressing-room singularly short of con¬ 
veniences. The qualification of Chinese was attribut¬ 
able to the wallpaper, traced in grotesque patterns of 
the type seen currently in European imitations of 
Asiatic articles. Some portions recalled the willow- 
ware dear to the imagination of children, with the 
bridge over which one man, or two, or three may be 
observed passing, or else no man at all. Other por¬ 
tions were crude representations of interiors and land¬ 
scapes, utensils and weapons, the two former being 
disagreeably unreal, the two latter disturbingly un¬ 
familiar. Each small picture stood out with vivid 
distinctness, shining as if enamelled or hard-varnished 
against a dull background. This struck Gilbert as an 
unusual and distasteful particularity of an otherwise 
banal wall decoration. 

“ So this is the dreadful Chinese Dressing-Room!” 
he reflected. 44 This is the place which brings a 
shudder to the adorable girl in white, and which drives 
even the unprincipled but devoted Gazeaux to pro¬ 
test! If I must be a prisoner and had the good luck 


140 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

to be allowed a choice, I should select this very 
place.” 

The moon, riding high in the skies, filled the room 
with radiance. Every object could be identified. While 
Gilbert was completing his inspection, a sharp metallic 
click broke the silence and a diffused yellowish light 
enveloped him. Unable to compete with the brilliant 
whiteness of the moon where the latter’s beams fell in 
a big clear-cut patch, the new light sought out the 
remote corners, emphasising equally all articles it 
touched, while casting no shadows. 

“Ah!” Gilbert exclaimed scornfully. “Fancy 
tricks to frighten naughty children !” 

Raising his head, he noticed a large bowl-shaped 
globe of heavy glass, evidently just lowered through a 
trap; a few minutes before the ceiling had appeared 
unbroken. Within the globe, a species of lamp burned 
as if by incandescence. 

Instantly, the idea of smashing that bowl took posses¬ 
sion of him. The act itself would be gratifying, if 
youthful, because it would mean accomplishing some¬ 
thing, however trivial. 

Or perhaps not so very trivial. Breaking through 
the glass, he might reach the trap (provided he did not 
set the house afire, but I doubt whether that mature 
consideration occurred to him); and if by good chance 
he could climb through the opening, he might possibly 
strike at the root of the illusions proposed here. 

He sprang to the nearest wall and seized a washing- 
stand, to drag it to the middle of the floor. The ceil¬ 
ing was not very high; from the stand, he knew he 


THE CHINESE DRESSING-ROOM 141 


could at least touch the lamp; so by adding a chair, he 
could climb through an opening if he made one. 

But the stand was secured to its place, as if built into 
both wall and floor. 

In his eagerness, he had all but overturned a pitcher, 
or so he had fancied, from the blow he dealt with his 
elbow. 

But the pitcher, like the bowl in which it rested, was 
immovable. 

His fingers passed rapidly over every article within 
reach. 

But the mug was anchored to the semblance of a 
cloth painted upon metal shamming wood; the soap, a 
dummy soap, formed part of a dish which stood firm 
as a rock; a large comb, in relief, was part of the slab 
on which it pretended to rest. 

Losing patience, he ran from object to object, from 
one piece of furniture to another, pulling, wrenching, 
struggling over them all, and unable to secure a hold 
or do more than tear his nails. Everything was rooted 
to its place, as if the room and its contents had been 
carved in the heart of a single block of granite. 

“We are doing no good here,” Ir&ne said ner¬ 
vously. “ Let us go.” 

“You go,” he answered. 

He had not before taken with her a tone of com¬ 
mand. She showed no resentment, but did not move. 

“You must go,” he repeated. “ This is so foolish 
that I can’t take it seriously; but I won’t leave yet.” 

“ Yes; we might as well meet the danger here,” she 
said resignedly. 


142 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“Not you—I alone!” Gilbert cried. “You must 
go.” 

“No,” she answered smoothly. “You are protect¬ 
ing me and—and others.” 

Again the pangs of jealousy smote him; but he re¬ 
flected that she might have referred to others merely 
so as not to acknowledge a debt. 

“Can you explain all this?” he asked. “If so, 
there may be no necessity for our staying.” 

“ It has always been like this,” she said. 

“Is it so old, then?” Gilbert looked dubiously at 
the commonplace articles surrounding him. 

“ When brought here from China-” 

Gilbert interrupted: 

“ It was brought-” 

“ Intact from China. There it had been called a 
torture-chamber. During the Chinese Expedition, it 
was taken as a curiosity, and—the old Marquis de La 
Villeratelle put it up here, exactly as it was. That is 
all I know.” 

“ That is enough,” Gilbert said, unable to cast off 
a sense of discomfort creeping slowly over him. He 
spoke resolutely : “You shall not remain here. Would 
you compel me to leave too ? It is my duty to stay, as 
yours is to go; but I would fail in that duty, rather 
than see you here for one moment longer.” 

She raised her head, as if suddenly alert and listen¬ 
ing ; his eyes followed hers. 

The door, which had stood ajar, was closing, as of 
itself. No hand touched it, from within or without; 
no breath of air reached it. 




THE CHINESE DRESSING-ROOM 143 

Gilbert threw his weight against it and struggled. 

The door did not stir after settling smoothly in the 
jamb ; the handle twirled, released and useless. 

He rushed upon the window. An iron shutter had 
risen from the floor, the window was condemned. 

There was now no exit from the room; nor was there 
any light save that which the ceiling-lamp shed in a 
diffused yellow glare. 

Perhaps because his eyes sought an object to draw 
his attention away from the futility of despair, or per¬ 
haps because it was at that very moment the change 
occurred, he suddenly saw the strange Chinese designs 
on the wall grow luminous against their dull back¬ 
ground. 

He tried to fancy that the rays of the ceiling-lamp 
were casting lights from a new angle. But the more 
closely he looked, the more conclusively evident it 
became that those patterns, or at least many among 
them, shone with a refulgence of their own, like 
baleful, burning eyes. 


Chapter 16 


Torture 


Simultaneously he became aware of a warm breath, 
as of a tropical wind fanning his cheek. Only it did 
not pass on, nor was it renewed : it remained. He 
knew that the atmosphere of the room itself had been 
heated. 

Thoughts of the Inquisition, of the hellish inventions 
of Torquemada, besieged him. He remembered the 
noises of clashing bars, and supposed that the walls 
would gradually become incandescent; then they would 
creep forward, and a trap would open in the floor— 
unless the ceiling itself sank all of a piece, or unless the 
central lamp concealed a murderous device worthy of 
the fiend. 

Moments passed, and everything seemed as before. 
But suddenly Irene, who had retained her self-control, 
hurried to him and grasped his arm, pointing with her 
free hand straight before them: 

“There!” she cried out; pointing elsewhere, then 
waving to right and to left: 44 And there—and there ! 
Do you see? All of them! As if alive! Have I 
gone mad—or is this to be our death?” 

What had happened was that those strange figures 
they had noted, those Chinese men and women and 
pagodas, the bridges and the trees, the exotic and un- 
nameable instruments, all aglow against the dull back- 
144 


TORTURE 


145 


ground, were detaching themselves one by one, were 
gliding out from the wall towards the two who stood, 
paralysed by their bewilderment, in the centre of the 
room. 

Those moving, threatening figures could be only a 
fiction of the brain—unless they were an optical illu¬ 
sion caused by a peculiar phosphorescent paint. Gilbert 
swayed between the two suppositions, as he struggled 
to recover his normal senses, when a scream from Irene 
drove the reality home to him. 

An absurd figure of a pagoda was advancing upon 
them, by a continuous thrust showing no sign of hesi¬ 
tation. It passed beyond the limits reached by the 
other figures, and came steadily on, its incandescent, 
and not mere phosphorescent, quality growing plainly 
evident. Gilbert started back a step, drawing Irene 
with him, when he was checked by her screams. He 
glanced behind him. 

Another figure, whose shape he could not distinguish, 
was advancing from the opposite extremity of the room. 
The only safety—if safety there were—lay here in the 
very centre, here immediately under the lamp that cast 
the diffused yellow rays. 

Years later, Gilbert Lawrence shuddered and 
shivered, became pale and ghost-like, when speaking 
of it: 

“I can’t describe it—who could? But picture the 
situation for yourself, if you can. 

66 There you are, with the woman you love, in a small 
room papered with minute figures and motives which 
prove to be not paper at all, but shining, menacing 

10 


146 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

shapes, perhaps devouring substances, darting back and 
forth. 

66 The woman is so terrified as to be passive. You 
have that to be thankful for. She clings to you, say¬ 
ing nothing, doing nothing; not moving, just trusting 
you. But perhaps that’s the most dreadful thing about 
it all—she trusts you, and you know you are as totally 
helpless as she is. More helpless, indeed; because you 
feel you have kept the physical power to act, and yet 
you can only stand there with your arms about her. 
At least, there is that: you have your arms about her. 

44 Such thoughts as you have are scattered almost as 
soon as they come. You can’t think in the abstract, 
even where it is a question of her. You know your 
arms are about her; but you remember that this is no 
defence, given the circumstances, and is still further 
removed from being a solution. You may both stand 
there, closely entwined, until you drop; but one of 
those accursed, threatening things is bound to reach 
you. It will be upon you if you totter by so much as 
an inch or two, or if you advance a hand to ease her 
position when she is fainting ; and if you escape it while 
you are still able to stand, it will reach you both when 
you fall helpless or senseless, full length upon the 
floor. 

66 No, you can’t think in the abstract, or even about 
any one subject, for long. Because it’s impossible to 
keep your eyes away from those hellish, inexplicable 
things. They dance and jump about so unexpectedly 
that they fascinate; they attract a man’s allegedly free 
will exactly as the candle’s flicker draws the moth. 


TORTURE 


147 


“ For what appears to be an eternity, they will bob 
back and forth along the wall, swiftly, so swiftly you 
can’t make sure when they are out and when in. You 
merely are aware that they move. Then, abruptly, you 
can’t for the life of you tell how, there one of them is, 
grinning and shining and glowing within half an inch 
of you—or so you think. Perhaps you shifted your 
hand half a minute ago: you calculate that if you 
hadn’t, that hand would certainly have been touched 
by the thing, and then—then what ? 

“ You don’t know what, of course. That is the 
very finest part of this refined torture. 

“ What are those things, after all? Are they really 
shining paper flitting about, playthings for children 
and fear-traps for fools? In the stupidity of your 
dazzled wits, this idea returns very often. But you are 
sure to add the reflection that paper can be treated 
with exotic poisons, whose touch brings death or dis¬ 
figurement. This heat, this rising temperature which 
flushes your face, and swells your throat, and sends up 
your pulse to wild, hasty throbs while perspiration 
flows in streams from all your pores: is it really heat, 
or is it perhaps the effect on your organism of a subtle 
poison with which the very air is alive, infecting with 
death your brain and your blood alike? 

66 Or are those mobile figures really burning and 
threatening with fiery, positive, physical force? Are 
they disks heated red and white, darting forward at 
the extremity of steel rods to brand you, to burn and 
blister you here and there, on hand and chest and knee, 
to make you suffer and wince, perhaps, and lurch for- 


148 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


ward in pain, when one will smite and brand you full in 
the face! As you stumble back, in your suffering, 
blinded too, perhaps, others will deal you cowardly 
blows from behind; and so you will fall, writhing and 
shrieking; and after that, of course, all will be over. 
That is what you expect—and all you can expect. 

“ You can’t hold your thoughts for very long even 
on the subject of your torture. As in most hours of 
intense strain, your attention drifts away to details. 
You began by watching the figures with fascination as 
they flew in a maze which bewildered you. Next, you 
have become almost interested in them. You can dis¬ 
tinguish the varying shapes, very much as you identified 
them on the wall before you suspected the torment in 
store; you recognise them, alone or in groups; you try 
to count them, or, failing that, to approximate their 
number. 

“ Meanwhile, you must not fall—nor, especially, 
allow her to fall. By good luck, you were both in the 
centre of the room when the mad figure-dance opened. 
Here, immediately under the lamp, is a circumference, 
just sufficient for you both to stand in, beyond which 
the darting fiery shapes do not reach. You are in a 
sort of charmed circle; safe and untouched, you watch 
the awful Things steal craftily up, or make a vicious 
dash, and stop within an inch of you, and sink away, 
defeated by no power of yours, but by that slight space 
which is your only security. 

“ One aspect of it you realise after a considerable 
time has passed. The burning images advance from 
both ends of the room, but never from the sides. 


TORTURE 


149 


4 4 Yet the pictures decorating the sides shine and 
glimmer so as to create the illusion of movement, unless 
you watch closely. You presently convince yourself that 
they do not move, that their varnish is merely glisten¬ 
ing in the diffused rays of the yellow lamp. Your next 
mental step is to wonder if the figures at the end are 
moving, or if that also may not be an illusion! 

66 Then an accursed mandarin, or willow-tree, or pre¬ 
historic pitchfork, makes a dash at you, from a distance 
of a yard or two, as you bend curiously forward, and 
you just miss getting smacked and branded by it on the 
forehead. After that you remember, and are apt to 
be quiet for some instants, while the storm of flaming 
threats rages impotently round you. 

66 In that charmed circle they cannot reach you. 
You repeat this to yourself. But the observation that 
the danger comes only from the ends of the room is 
bound to return to your mind. You forget that the 
safety-zone has the form of a circle, and you are 
tempted to make a rush for the wall at the side towards 
which you are looking. Another instant, and you 
would be trying it. 

44 Still another, and you realise you would have been 
lost. For the figures dart out, so as almost to meet: 
the circle in the centre results from the convex half¬ 
moon which the figures on their extended rods would 
form from each side if left extended. 

44 So you renounce that hope; and you wonder why 
this spot of refuge was allowed; and you wonder why 
the figures themselves saved you from a leap within 
their stinging reach, near the sides—an instant of in- 


150 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

action on their part, and you would have been among 
them. 

44 Next, by a clear-cut logic truly remarkable, con¬ 
sidering the circumstances, you reflect that all this can 
only be a part of the torment. 

44 Just as the figures first quivered and stirred against 
the wall before beginning to threaten, so now they are 
allowing a circle in which you may feel immune, and 
may be immune and experience relief and count upon 
safety—until you are struck with sure, true aim, there 
in the refuge. 

44 Unless the lamp itself, the lamp with the diffused 
yellow rays which shone forth on a sudden, announcing 
that the torture was about to begin, should sink within 
the charmed space, bringing with it irremediable 
catastrophe? You perceive, now, that its globe would 
exactly fit within the circumference respected by the 
horrible, indescribable Things. 

44 So you can only stand and wait, knowing that in 
time you must fall, and the woman you love will drop 
with you; and knowing that then you will both be lost. 
Your eyes seek the floor as you think of this, and you 
observe the nimbleness with which the figures skip 
about the floor, too—everywhere save within that nar¬ 
row circumference where two may stand, chest pressed 
upon chest, but where not even a child could lie and 
remain immune from the most fiendish of dangers ever 
conceived by a human devil with a skin of parchment 
and the eyes of a rat.” 

The variety of threatening figures struck him as par¬ 
ticularly appalling. After the first spell of dazed fear 


TORTURE 


151 


—he made no scruple of acknowledging his fear—his 
overwrought senses became vividly conscious of every 
shape, size, position, and relative distance. 

At times men would rush forward from both ends of 
the room at once, men of all ages and conditions, sitting 
and standing, smiling and frowning, beggars, philoso¬ 
phers, mandarins, all glowing with the heat designed to 
sear, all intent on their purpose of torture. 

They would slip away and be quiet; next, buildings 
would become animated—the pagodas, the palaces, the 
reed huts, the bridges; burning too, threatening too, 
and just missing their mark too, before they retreated 
and made way for others. 

Then trees and pieces of rivers and islands would 
flash and approach, absurd and ominous; then those 
varied instruments whose names were unknown, whose 
uses could not even be guessed, would dance an insane 
sarabande. 

Lastly, all details, though so keenly perceived, would 
disappear in a maze where shapes and figures acted 
together before subsiding in a lull more horrible than 
the whirlwind of enveloping threats. 

Irene clung to him now, not merely with the strength 
of her terror, but with all the intensity of her love. 
He knew it, though his thoughts were concentrated, as 
far as he was capable of concentration, on saving her 
from danger—or saving her reason, and his own also, 
if this torture were to be prolonged. 

He folded his arms more firmly about her. There 
could be no doubt that her hold was weakening, 
whether from the failure of her woman’s strength, or 


152 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


from the protracted strain numbing her faculties so 
that she had lost the will to resist. 

In an agony of impotent despair, he felt her slipping 
from him. He asked himself what purpose it would 
serve, to exhaust his last strength as well as hers in this 
futile standing. The diameter within which they were 
secure existed as well at the floor-level as above; and 
if that seeming immunity were only a further torture, 
rife with danger and disappointment, they would find 
it out to their cost, later as well as now. 

Gently, he lowered her to the floor, in a kneeling 
position, and whispered : 

44 Stay as I place you, dear one. On your life, don’t 
move by so much as an inch! ’ ’ 

But as he leaned over her, the flying figure of a pirate 
junk was upon him, striking out like a scorpion’s sting; 
it missed his hip, grazing his coat. An odour of singe¬ 
ing filled the room : the cloth was burned through. 

Oddly enough, his mental tension was relieved by the 
accident. Now, at least, he knew. 

44 The heat and the movement had gone to my head 
until then, I suppose,” he told me. 44 I certainly had 
been dulled, stupefied, to a phenomenal degree. The 
thought 4 1 must save her, I must save her,’ had kept 
recurring monotonously, mechanically, like the driving 
of a piston. Not serving so useful a purpose, either. 
That simile isn’t good. I might rather have said like 
the turning of a child’s pin-wheel in a strong, steady 
summer sea-breeze. Save her! Of course I must save 
her. It was what I had come for. But I couldn’t 
accomplish it by stupid staring or stupider repetition. 

44 Then, fortunately, came the relief of knowing my 


TORTURE 


153 


clothes had really been scorched, added to the relief 
of believing Irene to be relatively safe for a while, pro¬ 
vided she did not expose herself by a movement, how¬ 
ever slight. I suppose I had grown used to the heat, 
too, by this time, and to the flash of those stinging, 
burning figures. At all events, I recovered the power 
to think sensibly, analytically. 

44 I was fairly certain that this seeming mystery must 
be worked by a simple mechanism which two or at most 
three people could keep in motion. Whatever the 
device, it could be put out of order. If, as I supposed, 
those figures were heated at the end of steel rods, then 
they must go home into the walls to be reheated. Let 
the rods be bent so that they could not glide back into 
their original position, and heat could not be conveyed 
to make them burn. That idea of the rods had been 
suggested by recollections of the stirring of irons which 
Irene and I had heard. 

4 4 Clearly, I must make some attempt of the kind; 
but I could not do it with bare hands. I looked for a 
possible weapon of defence, and tapped against my 
pockets. Something flat and resistant was there: the 
snuff-box of Charles, the Huguenot Count de Laurency. 

44 By good luck the top, being convex, fitted into the 
palm of my hand, giving me a better grip than the 
bottom, which was flat; and to this I owe the fact that 
the jewels and the enamel were saved. 

44 It became my weapon for smiting the figures. I 
put quite a number out of commission. But the gold 
got too hot, my hand was scorching. Besides, the 
reach was too limited. 

44 In despair, I looked down on Irene. 


154 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 The rays of the central lamp played on a great 
quaint buckle of old Spanish silver—an heirloom, per¬ 
haps, from the family of the late Dowager Marchioness. 
That buckle, swung from the end of the girdle, would 
make a weapon having both strength and scope, pro¬ 
vided I could avoid all contact between the burning 
irons and the silken fabric. 

44 I unfastened the girdle from Irene’s passive form. 
She did not seem to be conscious; yet she had remained 
in her kneeling position; and as I dropped the Laurency 
snuff-box she clutched it and clung to it, as to a forlorn 
hope. I very much doubt whether she knew what it 
was, or what she was doing. 

44 A few minutes more, and I had succeeded in 
spreading havoc round us. First a score of figures, and 
then a second score, were twisted on their wires—for 
those were wires rather than bars, of remarkable temper 
and resistance, for all their extreme tenuity. When I 
had torn and battered everything within reach, the 
room presented a grotesque appearance, as of a broken, 
tangled, old upright piano, half-burned and smashed 
open after being pitched out of the window of a house 
on fire. 

44 Nobody could again take this torture seriously. I 
saw the figures and the wires cooling; I saw them 
twitch, trying to retreat, and either stick or else get 
caught one within the other; I saw others, still un¬ 
damaged, venture out timorously, and get mired in 
among the rest. 

44 And I laughed aloud. . . . 

44 Then certain glazed figures, which had not yet 


TORTURE 


155 


moved, which I had thought immovable, detached 
themselves from the walls—not singly and spas¬ 
modically, nor yet in groups, like the rest, but by a 
smooth, concerted movement, showing that they obeyed 
one will, one law. They glided out, resolute and well- 
disciplined like an armed force to the attack; and they 
halted, all in straight lines, facing me. The figures 
were of but two sorts—rickshaws and umbrellas, glow¬ 
ing and many-coloured ; wherever I looked, nothing but 
rickshaws and umbrellas. 

66 1 sprang upon them, swinging my triumphant 
buckle at the end of the girdle. 

6 ( The buckle got caught; the silk shrivelled to dust 
on some inches of its length; the buckle, suspended on 
a diminutive shaft, lost its silver brightness and turned 
quite black. 

“ Those rickshaws, those umbrellas, were not heated. 
They shone not from fire but from some sort of phos¬ 
phorescence or chemical incandescence. I became 
aware of a pungent, sickening, intoxicating odour 
which filled the room. So I knew that Irene and I were 
being conquered with poisons. 

“1 say I knew it. I believe I got so far as to know 
it. But all I am really sure of, now, is that I reached 
Irene as she was falling, and that, trying to raise her, 
I fell.” 


An Experiment 


Chapter 17 

On coming to, his first sensations were cold and numb¬ 
ness. He could form no idea of time or of locality; 
absolute blackness reigned, and no sound reached him, 
save his own laboured breathing. 

Presently he discovered that he was not only numb 
but unable to move, closely bound from head to foot. 
Since he could at least make an effort, and could feel 
pain from his bonds, he concluded there was no injury. 
This might be a passive ordeal of silence and darkness 
and isolation, planned to shatter nerves already racked 
by active persecution in the Chinese Dressing-Room. 

Of Irene, there was no sign. A heaviness of the 
head made him unsure of hearing. Might she be near, 
and alive but unconscious? Maddened by anxiety, he 
strained until he tore his skin on the cords. The smart 
roused him, for a while; then he relapsed into apathy. 

A door opened, and he was blinded by the light from 
a large lamp held aloft in a woman’s hand. For an 
instant, able to distinguish nothing in the radiance, he 
saw the material expression of his thoughts; he recog¬ 
nised the pale, calm beauty of Irene, and he called to 
her. 

The form advanced; the lamp was lowered. Where 
he expected slim, white folds falling gracefully, he saw 
a long sweep of stern black. He was staring full in the 
face of the Spanish Marchioness. 

156 


AN EXPERIMENT 


157 


It had taken but a flash, a brief fraction of a second ; 
the word he had uttered was not out of his lips before 
he knew his mistake. From stern, her look had become 
startled, then it had softened, and at last turned ironic. 
He watched her closely, his senses alert from a double 
intuition of a danger to be averted and of an oppor¬ 
tunity to be found. 

“ You may call out if you please; she is too far away 
to hear,” said Marchioness Elvira. 

If he had not been fortunate enough to witness the 
phases of expression preceding her irony, he would have 
answered as she expected. But her evidence reassured 
him, in a measure, about Irene. His plan now was to 
obtain his liberty from Elvira, and use it afterwards, 
as best he might, for rescuing Irene. 

66 It is you who heard,” Gilbert answered. His 
tongue was thick, his mouth dry, his breath short; but 
the voice carried. 

“ What is more, I have seen,” said the Spanish 
Marchioness. 66 Seen you and her together.” 

“Well?” Gilbert asked, undisturbed. 

She glanced at him, again startled by the newness of 
a thought she drove from her; she glided her steely- 
brown eyes away, as if fearing that their mirror-like 
surface might reveal her inner reflections. 

“You have seen and heard us together,” Gilbert 
insisted. “ What then?” 

His indifference evidently troubled her; indifference 
as to his predicament and as to her knowledge of the 
secret which linked him with the girl in white. She re¬ 
acted, however: 


158 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ Words won’t get you out of here.” 

“ Suppose I don’t want them to ? Suppose I am con¬ 
tent ?” he asked. 

She frowned upon him, imperious and ominous in 
her displeasure at what she took for sarcasm. He went 
on : 

66 You didn’t come to torture me with your own 
hands, did you, Marchioness? You may enjoy pre¬ 
paring scenes like this, and others I might mention—as 
a joke; but you are not going to rack my unhappy 
limbs? You know you aren’t! Well, since you didn’t 
come for that, you must have come to talk with me.” 

44 Perhaps you are right, so far, but not in your 
understanding of our talk.” 

She meditated for several moments: 

“ I shall be frank with you, and begin by asking a 
few questions.” 

<e I shall answer them, Marchioness.” 

“ First, what are you doing at the Manor of Cour-de- 
France ?” 

“ Really ’’—Gilbert smiled—'“ I don’t know what 
reply to make. I thought I was coming here on the 
mission I told you about; or told the Marquis, rather, 
while you listened behind the curtains. That sort of 
game amuses you, doesn’t it, Marchioness? It is harm¬ 
less, at least! But, as events have developed, I can’t 

imagine what I am doing here, except—except- 

Well, I believe I have answered your first question as 
fully as I can.” 

He seemed to have grown embarrassed; she had 
lowered her eyes. 



AN EXPERIMENT 159 

66 Strange, your arriving so, unannounced, unat¬ 
tended,’ ’ she murmured. 

44 Yes; unless it was predestination,” Gilbert said; 
and felt a sudden qualm lest she had overheard him 
make a similar remark—though how different in its 
sincerity!—to the girl in white. He added, hastily: 
44 Now, your second question?” 

44 Is superfluous, on the whole,” Marchioness Elvira 
retorted, for his altered tone had not escaped her 
attention. 44 It consisted in asking on which side you 
were.” 

44 That,” said Gilbert promptly, 44 is what I should 
like to know. Which are the sides—and what does it 
all mean ?” 

44 1 demanded frank replies from you, and instead 
you are questioning me.” 

44 Am I so unreasonable in trying to puzzle out what 
the sides are?” 

44 Yet you pretend that predestination-” She 

stopped, to mark her sneer. 

44 Did I dare tell you its nature?” he asked, with so 
abashed an air, and such a semblance of earnestness, 
that the sneer died on her lips. He continued, quickly 
pursuing his momentary advantage over this woman of 
phases and contrasts : 44 What are the two sides which 
you expect an utter stranger to see as clearly as you 
do? If the Marquis is insane, as would appear, then 
what is your purpose in abetting him? Is Gazeaux in 
good faith when obeying slavishly; and if so, why don’t 
you intervene ? Is the self-styled Count de Laurency a 
friend to the Marquis, or else to you-” 


160 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ Or even to anybody else!” she snapped viciously. 
66 That is what you have been leading up to.” 

66 Then it would be leading away from the trail, 
since I begin by wanting to know about the Marquis.” 

66 Let him answer for himself.” 

66 Strictly between ourselves,” Gilbert exclaimed 
with his first show of impatience, 64 the word of the 
Marquis has about as much weight for me as the word 
of any other individual who is either intriguing or 
irresponsible, or both.” 

66 That tells on whose side you are,” the Spanish 
Marchioness observed, unemotionally. 

66 No; it is only a frank acknowledgment that I mis¬ 
trust a person who has deceived me,” Gilbert corrected 
her coolly. 

They had reached a deadlock. It was she who broke 
the silence : 

66 You have escaped from certain—shall we say un¬ 
pleasantness ?—in the Chinese Dressing-Room. But 
you are at the mercy of anybody’s caprices.” 

She smiled; it was a resplendent smile, whose shadow 
of ominousness was in no way repulsive. 

“ Perhaps you may come out none the worse for it 
all; or perhaps not,” she resumed detachedly. “ What¬ 
ever you, a stranger, may think, the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle is sweet, and kind, and generous, and, above 
all, true to those who are true to him. But the blood 
of olden days is hot in his veins; and when he is roused 
to the vengeance which was the hereditary right of such 
a lord—in France or in Spain-” 

66 Especially Spain,” Gilbert interrupted. 66 Come, 



AN EXPERIMENT 


161 


Marchioness; admit your share. Have I said I blamed 
you? Wasn’t it you who put him up to this—un¬ 
pleasantness, I believe we agreed to call it?” 

66 1?” she bridled in majestic anger. “ Who says it 
was I—I, who have done no more than defend him 
against slanderers? What amusement can I get from 
such things—though my loyalty may command me to 
stand by my only friend and protector in all the 
world?” 

66 Are you sure?” Gilbert questioned, very gently. 

<tf Sure of him ?” she challenged promptly. “ I would 
swear-” 

66 Never swear as to a madman’s thoughts or inten¬ 
tions. But that was not what I meant.” 

She reflected, as if to recall the exact words of his 
sentence; her look was concentrated, for a while, upon 
that search; then the look did not change, but was 
focussed upon him. 

Of course, she had a charm of her own; a dangerous 
quality more of power than of charm, indeed, yet exer¬ 
cising a fascination difficult to resist. He had felt it 
during their former contact, when his sentiments were 
all in rebellion against her. He resolved to yield wil¬ 
fully before it now. 

Not for one instant did he believe he could deceive 
her by feigning admiration. Her psychic sense was too 
strongly developed, or at least that part of the psychic 
which finds expression through the physical senses. 
But her kaleidoscopic changes—sternness, surprise, 
pleasure, irony—had shown that she could be im¬ 
pressed, provided she had faith in him. 


11 



162 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“Why should I care?” he asked, with abrupt 
irrelevance. 

“Care?” she questioned, frowning slightly and 
shaking off her trend of thought. 

“Yes. About my fate. Whatever it is to be, these 
moments are mine.” 

“ Moments of extreme discomfort, I should judge.” 

“Do you fancy I can think of comfort? What 
does that matter?” He let his eyes speak, and then, 
restraining them, said : “ You are with me.” 

It was the simplicity of the tone, the manner, the 
expression, which puzzled her. She shot another 
startled look at him, and became ironic : 

“You fancy I will loosen your bonds.” 

“ I have no bonds.” 

“You say that.” 

“ I know it.” 

Uncertainly, she set the lamp upon a small table. 

While not taking his eyes from her—she was sure 
to turn abruptly, to surprise him—he caught what 
glimpses he could of the room. It was uninhabited, 
and scarcely furnished at all. He lay on a cot or camp- 
bed ; he saw no chair, and only that one table. 

As he had expected, before the lamp was well in 
place, she glanced towards him, and met his adoring 
gaze. As if disconcerted, he looked away—in a new 
direction, exploring another part of the room and 
locating a door. Then his eyes again sought hers, 
imploringly. 

“ May I ask a favour?” he ventured. 

She made no reply. 


AN EXPERIMENT 163 

44 Stand away from the lamp, just a little—won’t 
you?” he pleaded. 44 I can’t see you, there.” 

44 Ah! Well, you will see nothing pleasant, I assure 
you.” 

She moved away, and, following her movement, he 
extended his reconnoitring still farther, though without 
result. 

44 You imagine I may release you because you flatter 
me,” she snapped. 44 But I will not.” 

44 What flattery have I uttered?” he demanded in¬ 
dignantly. 44 Do you know me so little-” He 

stopped short. 44 But it is true, you do not know 
me.” 

He was wise enough to abstain from sighing. 

44 Marchioness,” he asked suddenly, 44 what made 
you come back to me?” 

44 1 came to see if you were still alive.” 

44 With that smile? No!” 

44 This is idle talk,” she said. 

44 Then there is no harm if we continue. You came 
because you were sure I was living.” 

44 For a helpless prisoner, you are dangerously im¬ 
pertinent.” 

44 Not a prisoner, because bonds are an illusion. Not 
impertinent, because I am in love.” 

44 With her!” 

44 Yes.” 

At his admission, she bridled to hatred. He resumed : 

44 With her I have been seeking all my life, though 
I did not suspect it; as a child, when I held out my 
arms to the sunlight; as a lad, when my spirit roused 



164 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


to the mysteries of the night; as a youth, passionate 
and unsatisfied; and later as I pursued adventures which 
were always tame, and yet which never discouraged me 
because my soul knew one would come at last, and be 
true !” 

He noted that she was listening. 

66 I have scaled mountains with death in my heart, 
after a disillusion, and have hung over the abyss, eager 
to plunge down,” he continued, with his disconcerting, 
ardent simplicity. “ But I held back, knowing one 
woman must exist. I have stood on the ship’s deck 
at the height of the storm, when the man at the wheel 
was lashed to his place, and I have defied the elements 
to conquer one who lived for the sake of a love he was 
resolved to find. I have believed—believed . . . and 
lived and dreamed and laboured in belief.” 

He allowed his eyes to glow with the passion he was 
almost beginning to feel; he sank his voice and caused 
it to quiver: 

“ I won’t tell you I have never loved. Yes, I have 
loved, a hundred times, a thousand times; I have given 
to countless women a scrap of my heart, an hour of 
my adoration; they endured their test, and were for¬ 
gotten. But they had another purpose to serve. They 
made my education, they prepared me for loving, for 
loving with heart and soul and spirit. My dead loves 
paved the royal way along which I advanced—to you!” 

She had drawn near, attracted irresistibly; her eyes, 
greater and browner than ever, but now more akin to 
troubled seas than to mirrors, watched him, fascinated. 

“ You lie!” she breathed. 


AN EXPERIMENT 


165 


“ My left wrist is cut to the bone,” he said. 66 The 
whole arm is powerless. Will you unbind it? I swear 
I shall not attempt violence.” 

64 Was that all you sought?” she hissed. 

44 Do as I ask, and see,” was his answer, with a re¬ 
strained voice, but with adoring eyes. 

Her fingers trembled, as she loosened the cord; she 
could not undo one knot, and as she strained to it, his 
words about being cut to the bone were nearly verified. 
He did not wince, but his eyes widened and hardened 
whenever she pulled at the torn flesh; she noted this, 
and continued because of his courage. When succeed¬ 
ing at last, she stopped to observe him. There was no 
variation in his look, in his air. 

With abrupt decision, she released the cord entirely. 

For some moments, he seemed to think of nothing 
but to move the muscles of the numbed limb. Heavily, 
clumsily, the hand stirred, and reached tremblingly to¬ 
wards her. 

It dwelt for a considerable while in hers, passively, 
submissively, craving instead of commanding, trusting 
instead of questioning. She remained quite still, not 
surprised, not displeased, not planning. 

When he moved, she started as if called from a 
dream. His movement consisted in drawing her hand 
to him. Then his hand enveloped hers, for an instant, 
before it took command, as lord and master, adoring, 
protecting, domineering. It brought her hand to his 
lips, which reverently touched her smooth, warm skin. 

She was impassive still, impassive and sceptical. He 
kissed again passionately, and a flush rose to her mellow 


166 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


cheeks; he kissed again, and again; he smothered the 
hand in kisses. 

He could feel the quickened beating of her pulse. 
By a great effort, he regained control of his entire arm, 
he seized her by the waist and drew her to him. 

Her hand slipped to his throat as she fell towards 
him, and her lips met his. 


Chapter 18 


What had Become of Alain 


We lost sight of the Count de Laurency (as Gilbert 
Lawrence himself now agreed to call him, at least tem¬ 
porarily) in the course of the trial scene played by the 
Marquis. Gilbert had forgotten his kinsman and 
rival, had indeed failed to notice when and how he 
went away. And yet, Alain de Laurency had invested 
his time to good purpose. 

He had slipped out inconspicuously, bent on recover¬ 
ing his pistols. Having over Gilbert the advantage of 
knowing thoroughly those parts of the house to which 
he had been admitted by daylight, although he had not 
been privileged to penetrate all the secrets of the 
Manor, he was considerably dismayed at finding no 
trace of his weapons. 

Disposed, until then, to treat the whole affair lightly, 
in spite of momentary apprehensions against which he 
had reacted with an airy lightness characteristic of the 
society he graced, he said to himself: 

“ If they don’t mean serious business, at least they 
are going to put up a good imitation. Between a 
poor original and a fine copy, there’s not much to 
choose.” 

He did not care to trouble himself with much think¬ 
ing ; he had occasionally remarked that it was a fright¬ 
ful loss of time. However complicated a situation 
167 


168 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


might be, and whatever the variety of possible solu¬ 
tions, in the end you would find only one way out, if 
any. So why not save up your energies, adopt the 
first opening which occurred, and trust to luck, acci¬ 
dent, or the devil? 

“ I shall hunt up de Vernac, and advise him to clear 
out of a mad-house,’’ he concluded. 

It almost struck him that he might, at the same 
opportunity, discuss his own doubts with de Vernac. 
But that situation could be faced a little later. 

No time was lost by him in secret passages, first 
because he knew the Manor of Cour-de-France well 
enough to be aware that he did not know parts of it, 
and secondly because he surmised that the Baron de 
Vernac must be in a room of some description or in a 
cupboard leading out from a room. The most secret 
of passages was no proper place for keeping a prisoner, 
even in chains. 

Accordingly, he felt his way along many apartments 
already familiar to him, and discovered a number of 
new ones, before tumbling abruptly down a flight of 
stairs into a lower storey whose existence he had never 
suspected. 

The supposition that he might have stepped upon a 
trap-door artfully prepared, and that he too was now a 
prisoner, did not come to him; he was a comfortably 
unimaginative type of person. Instead, he accepted 
his slip as a natural part of the game; before getting 
up, he profited by his prostrate position to feel care¬ 
fully over the floor and the lower parts of the wall on 
each side. He rose to pursue these investigations, and 


WHAT HAD BECOME OF ALAIN 169 


turned next to the stairs which had treated him fairly 
well, if they had lacked frankness, since at least they 
had deposited him uninjured at their foot. Finally, by 
stretching up on tiptoe, he managed to touch the 
ceiling. 

So he learned, without the trouble of thinking, that 
this was a half-storey lying between the grand apart¬ 
ments and the cellars; it was finished with fine wood 
and panelling, ready for habitation, though reeking 
with dampness and airlessness. 

Being down here, not knowing whether he could get 
out as readily as he had come in, and having exhausted 
his resources on the floor overhead, he came to a swift 
and simple determination. Why not explore these new 
quarters before attempting to leave them? 

Successively, he opened several doors, and satisfied 
himself that they gave access to empty and abandoned 
rooms having tiny windows near the ceiling, too small 
for purposes of human escape. At last he came to a 
room which suggested an exact similarity with the 
others, save for the essential detail that a sound of 
heavy breathing issued from it. 

He entered softly. A man’s body, extended on the 
floor, tripped him, and he narrowly escaped falling. 
The body, less fortunate, did not escape a thundering 
kick in the ribs. 

There was a moan, a half-sob; another moan and 
half-sob, a noisy collapse; some instants of dead silence 
followed; then a series of moans, detached and in 
groups. A succession of profound sighs, presently, 
would have stirred the heart of a stone, but no stone 


170 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


was at hand, so there was no sympathetic response. 
The end came in a flow of hiccuped curses through 
which the voice could be identified. 

“ De Vernac—do you hear me?” Alain de Laurency 
whispered. 

The stream of cursing hiccups flowed afresh, more 
blithely than ever, after the attempted but unsuccessful 
interruption. 

44 De Vernac—listen !” 

The output and the resonance of the current of 
hiccuping and cursing continued steadily on the in¬ 
crease. Only, Alain de Laurency was encouraged to 
note that the curses had commenced to crowd out the 
hiccups. 

44 De Vernac! Stop this noise and let me talk.” 

The hiccups put up a final struggle and receded, 
vanquished; the cursing waxed in volume to a formid¬ 
able and triumphant roar. 

Alain de Laurency seized de Vernac by the arm and 
shook him violently, but without effect. Then he did 
a little thinking which he never regretted. He remem¬ 
bered the miraculous awakening which had followed his 
initial kick; and applying the lesson, he proceeded to 
administer a few more. 

44 Here! Why!” De Vernac raised himself to 
what might have been a sitting position. 44 Who dares 
to-” 

He was relapsing into curses, with a dangerous sub¬ 
stratum of hiccups, when Alain de Laurency forced 
him to stand. 

Supported beneath both arm-pits, the Baron de 



WHAT HAD BECOME OF ALAIN 171 

Vernac swayed foolishly like a doll strung up for the 
amusement of a child. 

44 Who has dared-” he muttered. 

44 Be quiet,” Alain de Laurency commanded, good- 
humoured but firm. 44 If you are not sensible, I shall 
drop you.” To which words he added just a little 
shake, to show he could do as he pleased. 

He continued: 

“ I come and pull you out of somebody else’s coal- 
cellar, where you certainly have no business to be, and 
by way of thanks you want to fight me at once, here, in 
the dark, without other weapons than your nails? If 
we’re to fight, it shall be at another time, over another 
matter.” His voice had become grave, in spite of 
himself. 

44 Where have you put me?” the Baron de Vernac 
asked, bewildered. 

44 1? Nowhere. I’m getting you out, or trying to. 
Do you know what house this is ? The Manor of Cour- 
de-France. What portion ? The cellar, or next thing 
to it. Who brought you here? That’s a mystery. 
It may have been parties unknown to me, or you may 
have tumbled down as I did, save that you’re drunk and 
I’m not. What are you to do next? Clear out as 
quickly and as quietly as practicable, before the Mar¬ 
chioness knows it was you created the disturbance. 
Come, I’ll-” 

44 Disturbance ?” 

44 Surely. You don’t flatter yourself all this hap¬ 
pened smoothly and silently, like the pictures in a 
magic lantern? But the Marchioness hasn’t seen you. 


172 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


she mayn’t know you were here; and if you leave 
now, she will never suspect it was you made all the 
trouble.” 

44 Drunk? You said I was drunk?” Leaning 
heavily against his companion, the Baron de Vernac 
reached out towards the wall. 44 1 am unsteady. And 
my head—yes, you must be speaking truth. We were 
together all day and most of the night.” 

44 Your horse is outside,” Alain de Laurency said, 
his flippancy falling from him now that the other gave 
signs of recovered wits. 

His mind was made up that the Baron de Vernac 
must be the enemy he sought, the slayer of his next of 
kin; and though he would adopt subterfuge when 
necessary for the salvation of a woman, his open and 
loyal nature rebelled against a sham of comradeship. 

44 You must go while still unseen by her,” said Alain 
de Laurency. 

44 You are right,” the Baron assented gloomily. 
44 Since nobody has seen me-” 

Alain de Laurency had not asserted so much; but he 
kept his counsel. 

44 We must go!” de Vernac exclaimed, as though 
the proposal had been his. 

As he took a step, he lurched and fell heavily. Alain 
de Laurency raised him, and, still supporting him, led 
him away. 

They did not speak until they had reached the 
postern, very slowly and most laboriously, after many 
slips and countless hesitations. 

Three horses were tied without, blown, unfed, for- 



WHAT HAD BECOME OF ALAIN 173 


gotten, shivering and whinnying in the night. Alain 
de Laurency helped the Baron to mount. 

“Your hat!” said de Vernac. He seemed to have 
been revived and awakened by the air. “ Your hat 
and cloak.” 

“ Don’t stop for a hat; you have your cloak on you,” 
Alain replied. 

“ I am not speaking of mine, but of yours,” the 
Baron snapped. 

“ To borrow them? But I told you-” 

“ No. For yourself. Are you ready, then?” 

“ I did not tell you I would ride with you,” Alain de 
Laurency rejoined coldly. “We have been together 
quite enough for the present.” 

“ Then you stay?” 

“ I may have business here. Is that any concern of 
yours?” 

“If you stay, I stay also.” The Baron tried to 
dismount, but lurched forward in the saddle, and all 
but fell to the ground. 

Alain de Laurency stood very erect and became very 
formal. 

“ M. de Vernac,” he said, “ the next time you and 
I converse, it must be on a question which may interest 
us both to the highest degree, but which I decline to 
approach while you are not completely master of your 
wits. Until then, I will not be your companion.” 

“You will explain, at least?” cried out the Baron 
angrily. 

“ I will not.” 

“ What if I insist?” 



174 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ I decline to hold further conversation with you for 
the present.” 

“ As you please. Then let me dismount.” 

66 No. You said you were going, and you shall go.” 

“ Who are you, to drive me from another man’s 
house?” But the Baron de Vernac’s anger was already 
waning from sheer physical impotence. 

“ I drive you from nowhere,” de Laurency returned 
curtly. “ I was responsible for bringing you here, 
when I didn’t know how closely a certain act of yours 
concerned me, and I only partly understood the plans 
formed by the Marquis de Le Villeratelle. I shall 
stand responsible for myself later; but I won’t accept 
now, or at any time, responsibilities for him. He is, 
in my opinion, a lunatic capable of anything. If you 
want to expose yourself when you are able to take care 
of yourself, that’s your affair—and his. Don’t think 
I shall interfere. But as I got you into the present 
mess, and as you can no more defend yourself than ”— 
he stopped just short of an insult—“ than I could if I 
were in the same condition, why, I’m helping you out.” 

Having finished, he turned impatiently away and 
caught his own horse by the bridle. After an instant’s 
reflection, he also took charge of the horse ridden by 
Gazeaux. He had supposed the steward would long 
since have attended to all three. 

“ If you don’t ride with me,” said the Baron de 
Vernac sullenly, <fi I stay too.” 

“ You drunken, drugged fool!” cried out Alain de 
Laurency in an exasperation he did not want to control. 

And, tearing his whip from the saddle where he had 


WHAT HAD BECOME OF ALAIN 175 


secured it, he gave de Vernac’s horse two swift, sharp 
cuts which sent him leaping madly towards the fields. 

“You can’t stick on,” Alain de Laurency philoso¬ 
phised in his wake. “ But you may stick long enough 
for that over-ridden beast to come down with you. 
Either way, you’re likely to be less damaged than if 
you’d stayed.” 

He led the two horses round to the front of the 
Manor and, putting them in the stables, unsaddled 
them and found fodder for them. On coming out, he 
observed Gilbert’s horse, and remembered the pistols 
he had undertaken to get. He found old-fashioned 
holsters, but the pistols were gone. This reawakened 
anxieties in him. He hurried some paces towards the 
main door, then turned back and cared for Gilbert’s 
horse as he had done for the others. 

“ The American would surely have seen to his horse 
if he hadn’t relied on the services of a hypothetical 
groom,” Alain de Laurency mused. “Groom! So 
that’s my job to-night ? Ha, ha ! Who will know— 
and what do I care ? Even if a body were to tell me 
so, I could stop his talk by—by delivering him over to 
our host! So why care?” 

He laughed for a moment; then, growing serious : 

“ That horse looked fresh. We have a night’s work 
ahead of us, and may need one sound horse to ride 
for a doctor—or for the marechaussee , the mounted 
police.” 

After which, humming a little love-song under his 
breath, Alain de Laurency re-entered the Manor of 
Cour-de-France. 


176 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


His simple programme had been very simply and 
successfully carried out. 

It occurred to him now—and he heaved a gentle, 
resigned sigh—that he must do some more thinking : 
just a very little more. This did not at all appeal to 
him, however; and so he was content to wander on, 
promising to himself that he would do his thinking 
rapidly, and very much to the point, when the urgency 
made itself felt. 

He went through half the rooms on the front; and 
through all the rooms of the great western wing; and 
then through the rooms at the rear, past the deserted 
death-chamber, and beyond it; and, having reached the 
end, was prepared to explore the great eastern wing, 
when a new development drew his attention. 

Darkness, either complete or patched with moon¬ 
beams through an occasional open window, had greeted 
him as he advanced slowly, listening sharply, and often 
compelled to feel his way. Especially in the death- 
chamber, the blackness had been absolute; affected, 
perhaps, by the atmosphere thick and acrid with the 
smoke of burnt-out torches, he had been obsessed by 
fears of trampling on a headless corpse, or, worse still, 
on a corpseless head which would bounce away like a 
ball. For that instant only, Alain de Laurency was 
imaginative. 

But here, in this corner-room, where he had expected 
his onward course to end, he both heard sounds and 
saw a light. 

They came from a slight crack in the solid wall to 
his left. If he were correct in his judgment of the 


WHAT HAD BECOME OF ALAIN 177 


bearings, a door in the middle of the wall would exactly 
correspond with the postern by which he had originally 
entered the Manor, and from which he had just 
despatched the Baron de Vernac. But no such door 
was evident; the signs he had noted were to the left, 
and he somehow suspected similar signs of light and of 
sound to the right. 

We already know that Alain de Laurency did not 
like to be worried by thinking. Instead, he tiptoed 
up, found a crack in a wooden panel which proved to 
be a secret door, and peeped through. 

It is a real pity that he was such a man of action. If 
he had stopped to observe more carefully, I might 
have been informed completely about the mysterious 
mechanism of the Chinese Dressing-Room. But, inci¬ 
dentally, he might then have arrived too late. 


» 


12 


Chapter 19 Results of the Experiment 

The moment when Alain de Laurency looked in on the 
furnace-room must have followed immediately after 
Gilbert’s successful attack upon the figures, with the 
help of Irene’s buckle. 

Exhausted and impatient, the Marquis strained at 
levers which would not work; he was in a tangle of 
wires of different lengths, some heating in the flames 
and some no longer reaching them. From the few 
words which Alain spoke on the subject, when address¬ 
ing the Marchioness, who afterwards told what she 
had learned, I gather that Gazeaux must have been 
stationed at a similar mechanism on the other side of 
the Chinese Dressing-Room. How they co-ordinated 
the movements of their respective sets of hellish images 
is more than I can imagine. Perhaps there was no co¬ 
ordination ; perhaps the very scattering of forces by 
two disordered brains added to the terror of the 
victims. 

The face of the Marquis must have been horrible to 
see ; though unfortunately Alain was not an imaginative 
person to attempt a description of it. He mentioned 
fury and perplexity, succeeding the impatience and the 
exhaustion already noted; but that was all; adding 
merely that this perplexity, under such conditions, 
seemed as unnatural as the setting for the scene itself. 

178 


RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 179 


Fury meant that the Marquis had failed; perplexity 
showed that some evil hope might still subsist. 

I should have expected the Marquis to show pathetic 
distress, his usual resource for concealing defeat. 
When neither pathetic nor menacing, he became 
clownish, and knew it. Perhaps Alain confused the 
sequence of events, or rather of expressions. 

For my part, I can fancy his face, reddened by 
the heat and astream with perspiration, furrowed by 
fatigue and anxiety and disappointment; his eyes, peer¬ 
ing through their thick glasses, only half-seeing; his 
lips opened tightly over those bright, irregular teeth; 
his head, blotted with that absurd little top-knot, 
shining, shining. There is a keen disillusion in his air, 
an accentuated limp m his walk if he attempts a few 
steps, a general affectation of undeserved defeat, of 
heroically accepted helplessness, of being an innocent 
victim to infirmities, to circumstances, to the general 
injustices and wickednesses of man, to the unreasonable 
rigidity of cast-iron. All which might well have roused 
the deepest sympathies of charitable souls belonging to 
the same category as the Spanish Marchioness. 

She, had she entered then, would surely have pillowed 
his distress on her generous bosom; would have spoken 
as one speaks, consolingly, to a child; would have 
called him kind, angelic, and intelligent, or similar 
names sweet to the ear of inordinate vanity and uncon¬ 
trollable arrogance. There are people whose destiny it 
is to deceive, and to be approved and encouraged 
therein, and to make friends unto themselves because of 
their deceit; just as there are other people whose im- 


180 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


prudent frankness and honesty expose them as a 
constant prey for the watchful perfidy of those afore¬ 
mentioned. 

So the Marquis abandoned his useless fires; but only 
after the look of perplexity had vanished. A candid 
and touching nature like his would not stop to cry over 
a spoiled plaything or to grieve over the collapse of an 
artful little plot, when a new toy, a fresh inspiration 
of evil, could be devised. He hopped, limping and 
hurrying, towards a different set of levers whose pur¬ 
pose he had just recalled; and I am sure that his face 
had the leer of a fiend. 

Alain saw him draw down a handle, and touch a 
spring; there followed a shifting of certain symmetrical 
rods; foul-smelling vapours issued in tiny streams from 
the wall, while machinery turned and ground and 
whined from invisible spaces. Then the Marquis leaped 
towards a dangling cord, and pulled it, and opened 
traps near the ceiling, through which the fumes drifted 
languidly. Then several short-lived human cries, one 
in a woman’s voice, sounded, muffled, beyond the 
wall. 

The intervention of Alain de Laurency was simple 
and direct, like most things he undertook. He caught 
hold of the Marquis, quite unembarrassed by reflec¬ 
tions to the effect that the Marquis was his host, since 
he did not pause to reflect at all; he seized upon the 
Marquis, shook him vigorously, and asked him what he 
was doing. 

With a fine sense of dignity, the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle protested against such treatment in his own 


RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 181 


Manor, while failing to understand, or feigning to fail 
to understand, what it was all about. 

The second action of Alain was as perfect in its logic 
as plain in its argument. He had been able to observe 
that there was no doorway in the wall through which 
the net-work of wires operated; he had concluded that 
the cries which reached him must have come from 
beyond that wall, where people—among them the 
Marchioness de La Villeratelle—were being frightened 
and fumigated, certainly, and perhaps seriously dam¬ 
aged. There being only a choice of two possible ways 
for reaching that farther room, either the traps near 
the ceiling or the door through which he had entered, he 
preferred the door, and accordingly resorted to it, 
dragging the Marquis, as it were incidentally, after him 
by the collar. 

They reached the door of the Chinese Dressing- 
Room ; which Alain identified because he had pru¬ 
dently run his hand along the wall, and so struck the 
knob. That knob turned freely, turned foolishly and 
uselessly, showing it had been tampered with. 

Alain ordered the Marquis to release the spring im¬ 
mediately, and make a passage into the room. He 
expressed himself in language so concise, in a voice so 
very firm, and with such a masterful grip on the throat 
of his prisoner—the Marquis knew himself to be no 
better than a prisoner—that obedience followed with 
astonishing swiftness. 

By the light of the central lamp, with its diffused 
yellow rays, Alain de Laurency saw the Marchioness 
de La Villeratelle and Gilbert Lawrence lying one 


182 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


beside the other, unconscious, on the floor. The room 
was filled overwhelmingly with a peculiar, nauseous, 
stinging smell. 

The Marquis darted upon Gilbert as upon a prey. 
Alain de Laurency gently gathered up Irene in his 
arms, and carried her out. 

Swiftly, and with sure steps, though the way was 
both dark and intricate—he seemed to be inspired by 
the unerring instinct of the believer in things high and 
true and beautiful—he took her to that inner court of 
which he knew, the court where the small fountain 
splashed in the moonlight; and there he restored her 
to consciousness. Not only the speed with which she 
recovered, but her complete lucidity as she recognised 
him and thanked him, with an unaffectedness discon¬ 
certing for one inclined to be her lover, seemed to show 
that she had fainted from fear or from partial suffoca¬ 
tion, rather than from asphyxiation. 

When looking out on that inner court, from the 
room where he had talked with Gilbert Lawrence, he 
had built up in fancy another sort of scene, between 
the Marchioness and himself; his thoughts had turned 
towards her very sentimentally, for a person proud of 
his unimaginativeness. 

Gilbert Lawrence, also, looking out on this inner 
court from another window when the moon’s rays had 
revealed to him the beauty of the girl in white, had 
dreamed of love as it might be, near this fountain at 
such an hour; and his dream had possessed the clearness 
of a hope. But now Gilbert, stoutly bound by the 
Marquis’s own hands, lay helpless and unconscious in a 


RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 183 


distant room where no shadow of a chance for release 
was held out to him, beyond what flitted in the 
capricious pleasure of the Spanish Marchioness. 

So it was Alain de Laurency, who had dreamed idly 
and without hope, who knelt before Irene at the foun¬ 
tain side; but so filled he was with concern for her 
welfare, so prompted by the single genuine desire to 
serve and to bring relief, that, while admiring and all 
but adoring, it never for one instant occurred to him 
that he might profit by his privileged position. 

If he had always held the Marchioness de La 
Villeratelle in particular esteem, it was perhaps because 
he considered her inaccessible. He had, in the past, 
been just attentive enough to expose himself to a hint 
that further attentions would sever all relations; yet 
it had been done so delicately, and in such good time, 
before he had committed his first tactical blunder, that 
he had escaped the rebuff which would have forced him, 
as a point of honour, to risk everything rather than be 
branded with failure. 

While conversing with Gilbert Lawrence, he had sus¬ 
pected the motives of the latter, and had asked himself : 
“ If this man can lay siege to her, why should not I?” 
But, under pressure of events, the thought had died 
away, and been forgotten. 

It should, however, be remembered that he was not 
very much of a thinker; he had not analysed the situa¬ 
tion before, nor did he do so now; and so he was able 
to alter his attitude without difficulty or embarrass¬ 
ment, when a new element was introduced into their 
relations. 


184 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


He had noticed, without desire to be indiscreet, that 
she held an object tightly in her hand, during her 
swoon. As she recovered, her muscles relaxed, and it 
slipped from her grasp. 

Bending to pick it up, Alain de Laurency was sur¬ 
prised to see an old-fashioned snuff-box, which bore 
the arms of his family enamelled beneath a count’s 
coronet. 

So it was to this she had clung as to her life! Un¬ 
imaginative though he might be, he wondered greatly. 

For generations, his family and the de La Villeratelles 
had been friends; this was evidently a gift from one of 
his remote ancestors. But what could it contain that 
would be precious to this adorable woman ? Not jewels; 
the space was too small, and her gems were too famous. 
Not powder and vanities, nor yet a restorative; her 
taste was too good to allow of misapplying a snuff-box. 
Only one explanation remained, and he called himself 
a dunce for not guessing it before and for being so 
timid as not to have understood without guesses. 

He returned the box with a marked and particular 
deference. She paid him with a mute look of thanks 
so deep, so eloquent, so frankly rapturous, that he was 
more than ever amazed at his former obtuseness. 

Woman-like, she did not allow him to follow up his 
advantage, after this betrayal of sentiment. So, at 
least, he interpreted the situation to himself. Only, 
the betrayal was not precisely of the nature he had 
counted upon. 

Hesitatingly, she glanced towards him; and as he, 
a prey to delicious emotions, hesitated also, she said : 


RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 185 


44 1 was not alone—there.” 

He tried to read in her eyes, that he might be sure 
of her meaning. 

44 Your fellow-prisoner?” Alain de Laurency re¬ 
turned. 44 That American—what’s his name?” 

44 He has told me, but I am not quite sure.” 

44 How could you be, when he was a stranger to you 
until to-night?” 

This question from Alain left the conversation in 
suspense. Not attempting to answer it, she ventured 
presently: 

44 We were looking for you, when the door was closed 
on us by a secret spring. We were prisoners before we 
knew. It was terrible.” 

44 For me?” Alain’s newly-roused heart throbbed 
excitedly. He could have no further doubts, now. 

44 Yes. He- What did you say his name was ?” 

44 No matter about him,” Alain reassured her 
cheerily. 

44 But he overheard that you would be threatened in 
the Chinese Dressing-Room.” 

44 I?” 

44 Yes. It was intended for you. He told me, and 
we went to save you.” 

44 So it is I who owe my liberty to you.” 

44 And to him.” 

This prudence on the part of the Marchioness did 
not discourage Alain—who knew it must be mere pru¬ 
dence. 

44 1 thought to deliver you, and your thought had 
been for me,” he said. 



186 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ But for—the American—I should never have sus¬ 
pected your danger.” 

Alain de Laurency acknowledged the remark with a 
slight bow. 

44 Has he been saved?” she insisted. 

“ Oh—probably. We left the door open behind us.” 
<fi Did we leave him—alone?” 

44 Not exactly. The Marquis-” 

4 4 Had come back ? Then there may be grave 
danger.” 

Now that she mentioned it, Alain quite agreed. He 
had not thought of it before. 

44 1 shall see,” he said; and was about to start off. 

44 Leaving me here?” she asked. 

Again, Alain’s heart misbehaved. 

44 1—should be afraid,” she explained. 44 The 
Marquis-” 

But Alain was still not deceived by her prudence. 

44 Will you go with me?” he proposed. 

She nodded; and, rising, went in from the small 
court with him, leaning on his arm. 

They lost a considerable while wandering through 
tortuous passages and exploring, torch in hand, rooms 
which revealed nothing of interest. Irene, being weak, 
rested heavily upon him : a circumstance which Alain 
de Laurency did not fail to note. 

Possibly he prolonged the walk. At all events, much 
time had elapsed when they reached the threshold of 
the room where Gilbert lay bound to a camp-bed from 
which he was seeking release by means of an experiment. 
The moment was the very one when Marchioness 


RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 187 

Elvira, at the close of Gilbert’s passionate declaration, 
bent forward to receive his kiss. 

Irene drew back, and was gone in an instant, flinging 
from her the gold snuff-box to which she had clung so 
faithfully through tortures, and through swooning, 
and through consciousness. 

Alain de Laurency marked its course as it rolled 
away, and recovered it before starting in pursuit of 
her. He wanted it because it belonged to his family, 
and because it was so dear to her that it constituted a 
pledge. She had dropped it by accident, of course, and 
would seek for it; and he would help her, revelling in 
her distress, before confessing that he had treasured 
it all the while—for her. 

As he followed, he commented to himself : 

44 If I had known she loved me so much that the 
very sight of the happiness of others would be too much 
for her- Well, well! I know it at present.” 



Chapter 20 


Mistress of the Manor 


At the sound of the falling snuff-box, the Spanish 
Marchioness had started; she had seen nothing, but 
without turning she guessed enough. Cool and de¬ 
liberate in every movement, she detached herself from 
Gilbert’s clasp as if he had been a patient who 
needed tending, or a prisoner whose bonds were to be 
tightened. Having finished this apparent duty of an 
entirely casual nature, she swept, without a sign of 
precipitation, from the room. 

Gilbert lay for some moments, puzzled by the manner 
of the Marchioness in leaving him. He had the im¬ 
pression that she had let something fall, and he con¬ 
nected this with her swift change and an eclipse as 
serene and as irresistible as that into which the queen 
of the heavens may glide on a starry night. At least, 
he had given no offence; and he did not believe she had 
reacted against her emotion of a moment. He medi¬ 
tated upon what he had done, and tried to speculate 
as to the outcome. 

Being unable to form a conjecture, he resolved to 
profit promptly by such fruits as his strategy had 
borne. Whatever the future might reserve, his left 
arm was free. 

With cautious patience, he loosened successively all 
the bonds which held him; the task had not been very 
188 


MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 


189 


thoroughly done, and he reflected ruefully that if the 
Spanish Marchioness had only been in less of a hurry 
to see him—whatever her true object—he might have 
escaped without assistance, and so avoided complica¬ 
tions about which he did not like to think. For 
although he trusted Irene to understand when he told 
her, he did not trust Elvira to accept explanations or 
even to allow them. In fact, a great fear filled him that 
Elvira might attempt explanations of her own, which 
would conform to semblances rather than to intentions. 

Rising uncertainly, combating physical weakness 
and numbness by the effort of a head which sang and 
swam so as to be of really very little practical use, he 
reached the door and clung to it. He wondered where 
to go, what to do next, whether he could manage to go 
or to do it, as the case might be, when he made up his 
mind—provided he had a mind to make up. In a word, 
he was on the verge of collapsing, when he became 
aware of an animation such as he had not yet suspected 
to be possible at the Manor of Cour-de-France. 

For an instant or so, he fancied the servants must 
have returned prematurely, solving a situation other¬ 
wise almost inextricable. Listening attentively, he 
recognised the voices; and after that he was no longer 
threatened by weakness. On the contrary, his senses 
sprang into force as if he had endured no strain, had 
been exposed to no intoxicating fumes, had never felt 
the pressure and the wounding of ropes. 

All the voices speaking were familiar to him; only 
they spoke in an entirely new and amicable tone. An 
argument was in progress; the Marquis gave an order 


190 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


against which Alain de Laurency protested, while 
Marchioness Elvira intervened, and Gazeaux barked 
out questions which nobody bothered to answer. Of 
fear, anger, resentment, no trace subsisted. 

On the threshold of a grand hall in the eastern wing, 
Gilbert stopped to reconnoitre. 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle was established at 
the head of a huge dining-table stacked with an 
appalling amount of things to eat. Whole hams and 
haunches of mutton, a lamb and a sucking pig roasted 
entire, several turkeys and a number of fowls, a suc¬ 
cession of massive pasties, vast crystal bowls of stewed 
fruits, suggested a mediaeval orgy. Decanters sparkled 
among the dishes, and a sideboard displayed regiments 
of fresh bottles. A concession had been made to con¬ 
venience, in that two many-branched candlesticks re- 
paced torches. Perhaps the Marquis had remembered 
that candles themselves are an institution of venerable 
antiquity. 

A carved arm-chair, surmounted by a coronet and a 
coat-of-arms, formed a throne for him. Opposite, in 
a chair more frailly built but of similar design, was 
Marchioness Elvira. Between them, was a third chair, 
like the others but smallest of all; they might have 
been proportionate thrones for a king, a queen, and 
an heir-presumptive. Other seats, with high backs but 
no arms, were placed on either side. 

“ Say we are waiting, Gazeaux,” the Marquis called 
out, in a pleasant voice as free from menace as from 
hypocrisy. 

No one .could have guessed the tasks on which he had 


MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 


191 


been engaged. He was not only serene in mood, but 
composed in dress. Leaving Gilbert bound to the 
camp-bed, he had evidently retired to wash his hands 
and smooth his clothes, and part his absurd little puff 
of hair in the middle of his polished bald head. 

“ But M. de Laurency has told us she cannot come,” 
the Spanish Marchioness interposed. 

‘ 6 What! Not gone yet?” the Marquis asked 
Gazeaux, by way of reply. 

“ I said ‘will not ’ come,” Alain de Laurency 
corrected. 

“ Tut, tut! ‘ Will not’ is not a word,” the Mar¬ 

quis rejoined, his cheerfulness unabated. 66 A woman’s 
whims—a mere girl’s whims. Tell her I say we are 
waiting, Gazeaux.” 

“ And I who don’t know where she is!” the steward 
grunted. 

“ Find her, Gazeaux; find her! You know the 
premises, I fancy!” the Marquis said, rubbing his 
hands together. 

“ Marquis,” Alain de Laurency broke in, “I took 
your first message to the Marchioness, and I brought 
her reply, which is definite. She will not come to table 
to-night.” 

“ Three minutes ago, my dear sir; perhaps as much 
as five,” the Marquis chuckled. “ Go to her imme¬ 
diately, and she will have changed in our favour; wait 
and argue, and she will have swerved round again, back 
to where she started. Don’t you know women?” 

Marchioness Elvira spoke with a coldness belied by 
her warm cheeks and flashing eyes : 


192 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


4 6 Since she does not desire our company, why should 
we insist on hers?” 

“ Politeness to guests; courtesy to you; duty to 
me,” the Marquis replied debonairly. “ Aha! The 
son of my old friend Charles Lawrence !” 

It was impossible to decide whether he had only just 
noticed Gilbert’s presence, or only just found it con¬ 
venient to notice him. He continued : 

‘ 6 Are you rested, Mr. Lawrence? You have had 
your nap? Very good! We had decided not to wait 
for you; we know what travelling is. And ”—bright 
as he was, it would not have seemed possible for him 
to brighten further, yet he did —“ we shall not wait 
any longer for the Marchioness. She will come. 
Meanwhile, suppose we take our places?” 

Since he and the Spanish Marchioness had already 
been occupying theirs for some time, a neater rebuff 
could not have been administered to recalcitrant guests. 

Elvira, to whom the Marquis had appealed while 
saying his last words, looked towards Alain de 
Laurency, who hesitated. 

66 Will you sit here, M. de Laurency?” She 
pointed to her left; then, addressing Gilbert: “ Mr. 

Lawrence-” and she indicated the place of honour 

at her right. 

Alain de Laurency flushed. A moment before, he 
was willing enough to be at her left, which would mean 
having the real Marchioness on his other side. But he 
had not then known who would outrank him. Even now, 
he felt slighted for the sake of an obscure foreigner, 
little suspecting that foreigner’s origin and ambitions, 



MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 


193 


Gilbert Lawrence, too, stood uncertain as to his 
course. To accept that seat, to outrank, by command 
of the Spanish Marchioness, one already half-acknow¬ 
ledged as owner of the Laurency title, would invest 
himself with a prestige invaluable for the purpose of 
championing Irene, as well as for asserting his claim. 
On the other hand, he would forfeit the advantage he 
enjoyed when not a guest of the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle. 

Alain was the first to reach a decision; the prospect 
of being next to Irene prevailed—for he believed that, 
if not urged, she would come. 

But as he advanced, the Marquis broke in with one 
of those unaccountable transitions springing either 
from wily design or from the misfortune of deafness: 

“ So you are going to fetch her, M. de Laurency?” 

Alain concluded that this was an opportunity. 

6 6 Yes, if she is willing; but I shall attempt no 
persuasion.” 

“ Then you, Gazeaux-” A slightly puzzled 

wrinkle, rather than a frown, was forming on the brow 
of the Marquis. 

“ I can’t do that and attend to my service.” 

“ True, true.” 

The Marquis had sunk his voice, while still showing 
no anger. He swerved suddenly towards Gilbert: 

“ Surely, you will call the Marchioness?” 

“ I thought,” Gilbert said, “ that the place of the 
Marchioness was filled?” 

His sole idea had been to maintain the attitude of 
discretion imposed upon him. But he realised at once 

13 



194 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

the misfortune of his words; unable to retreat, he 
waited. 

With a majestic movement, Elvira looked round. 
She had displayed indifference when assigning to him, 
as a matter of course, the seat of honour. Now, she 
turned, deliberately and impressively, like a statue of 
perennial bronze upon its base; menacing, inhuman, 
insuperable, a gigantic goddess meant to be adored in 
a forgotten creed. 

44 This place is my own,” said the Spanish Mar¬ 
chioness, 4 4 and has been mine since I first entered the 
Manor of Cour-de-France. It is not you, Mr. Law¬ 
rence, who can challenge it.” 

44 Challenge it? Your place? Who would dare!” 
thundered the Marquis. 44 Is that why she would 
not come ? So there’s the reason for her tantrums! 
Well, she shall come now. Gazeaux, tell her I com¬ 
mand it!” 

There was a sound at the threshold. Irene stood 
among them, pale and motionless as marble. 

In silence, she surveyed them one after another. 
Her expression did not change as her eyes glided on. 
When they met Gilbert’s they contained no ray of 
explanation, though he fancied they were imperceptibly 
sterner than before. He was thrilled by what he inter¬ 
preted as her consummate acting. 

Motionless as she stood, however, and impassive 
though she remained, something, an indefinable aspect 
of her attitude, had shown she was prepared to 
speak. 

She parted her lips and waited a moment longer; the 


MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 


195 


five others present held their breath as if their fate 
were in suspense. Her voice came full, firm, well- 
controlled and without modulation : 

“ I think you commanded me to come, M. de La 
Villeratelle ?” 

“I did.” 

She pursued, unaltered: 

“ I came before the command reached me, and so I 
overheard you delivering it to a servant. I have not 
obeyed you, Marquis, though I am here.” 

The Marquis flushed; his polished head, redder than 
his cheeks, glowed like fire, while his teeth shone white 
and wolf-like. 

<e Now I command you, Madame, to take your seat 
at table.” 

* 6 That direct order, at least, has been received,” 
said Irene, impassive as ever. 66 But before I comply 
or decline, I wish to know if your order is addressed 
to the Marchioness de La Villeratelle.” 

After a hesitation of a fraction of a second, the 
Marquis said : 

“ It is.” 

(i Then I shall take my place.” 

As she said this, Gazeaux sprang forward and drew 
back the arm-chair resembling the throne of an heir- 
presumptive. She did not stir, merely directing her 
glance towards Marchioness Elvira. 

“ I heard you ask, Madame, who dared challenge 
your right to the seat at the head of this table,” she 
said. 64 1 challenge it.” 

The Marquis leaped to his feet. All were now stand- 


196 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


ing, save the Spanish Marchioness alone, who retained 
her throne, with defiance in her eyes. 

“1 have been commanded by the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle to take my place at his table,” Irene 
continued. 66 That command was given to me as 
Marchioness de La Villeratelle. There is only one such 
title. You bore it once, for a short while, Madame. 
But when I was married, you had to add your maiden 
name; you are now Marchioness de La Villeratelle de 
Vozmediano; or, if you prefer, more familiarly, Mar¬ 
chioness Elvira. You filled that place becomingly 
while the late Marquis lived, as also while this Manor 
was without a mistress. During these months which 
my husband has been pleased to consider as my appren¬ 
ticeship, you sat there in my stead. But events have 
occurred to-day which are not to my taste. To-night 
I demand my rank and my place if I am entitled to 
them. If not, then no one here has any authority 
over me.” 

“We shall discuss this later,” the Marquis ex¬ 
claimed, in the tone of sharp brutality which his 
intimates knew too well, but which he concealed from 
the outside world. “ Meanwhile, will you take the 
seat you have always occupied—even when alone with 
me, before the return of your sister?” 

“No, I will not; for in that, as in everything else, 
you deceived me with characteristic duplicity, Mar¬ 
quis. You induced me to occupy this seat, pleading 
that it was nearer to you, that you could see and hear 
me better. I believed you—I pitied you, then! We 
quarrelled that same evening; and I found this place 


MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 


197 


always prepared for me; and, not suspecting your 
hypocrisy, I scorned to quarrel further over such a 
detail. I had already learned, at least, that to cross 
you in anything meant a quarrel. Then the Mar¬ 
chioness de La Villeratelle de Vozmediano ”—she laid 
merciless stress upon the Spanish name—“ returned, 
and I understood. I ought to have raised the issue 
then. But my martyrdom had commenced.” 

“ I have said we will discuss this later!” the Mar¬ 
quis rapped out. 

66 And I say we shall discuss it now!” the Mar¬ 
chioness retorted with spirit. 

66 Madame! It is my will-” 

“ Your will?” She smiled more indulgently than 
scornfully. “You have no will; you merely have a 
way about you.” 

The Marquis grew purple. She resumed tranquilly : 

“ It would suit you very well indeed to talk with me 
after your guests have gone; when I am alone in this 
big, rambling, deserted old house, alone with you, and 
your faithful steward, and your Spanish—sister, did 
you call her?” This time Irene did not bridle her 
scorn. 

Marchioness Elvira, livid, and with tigress-eyes, rose, 
pushing back her chair; she faced the Marquis, as if 
ordering him to speak. 

The real Marchioness paid no attention to her. 

“ I know your methods of intimidation, M. de La 
Villeratelle. I don’t pretend to prophesy what you 
might do; my invention is not equal to yours : I have 
other views and aims, thank God! But I know the 



198 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


sort of thing you are capable of doing—I know how 
you stoop to treat grown people as if they were 
children, and how you jeer at them later for having 
taken you seriously! You held me cowed, for 
months. At first I feared you would kill me in one of 
your rages; then, when I was too miserable to care 
for myself, I trembled for others; you threatened to 
kill my father and my mother if I left you. That 
helped you to keep me here—for what purpose, Heaven 
knows, unless it was from vanity!” 

Little by little she was losing her admirable self- 
control ; she went on, more rapidly : 

“ I believed you intended to kill the Baron de Vernac 
to-night. I believed you would behead me if you 
judged me guilty of preferring another to yourself. 
And while I can swear before the blessed Mother of 
God that I have not sinned, I say it would not be 
difficult to prefer another to you! I believed you 
would behead anyone I called to my rescue, using any 
means to your end. I believed, awhile ago in the 
Chinese Dressing-Room, that you were prepared to kill 
me at last. And then my eyes were opened. It was 
a farce, all a farce; you are a coward, and farcical!” 

She was almost crying; there remained to her just 
sufficient wisdom to forbid further words. 

It was Elvira who spoke : 

“ I have listened patiently to these insults and 
infamies, because it is for the lord of the house to make 
them cease. I am but a stranger, an intruder; if not 
homeless, I have at least no home here, nor the right 
to defend myself. Will not the Marquis de La Villera- 


MISTRESS OF THE MANOR 199 

telle give me protection in his Manor of Cour-de- 
France?” 

The Marquis appeared to have shrunk within him¬ 
self; his head was bowed, he had grown pathetic, as 
he knew how to do when it suited his purpose. Had 
the words of the Marchioness, the true Marchioness de 
La Villeratelle, struck home—or was he only be¬ 
wildered, or else gaining time with treacherous intent? 
With him, who could ever tell ? 

Elvira advanced majestically towards him. 

44 I cannot for so much as an instant imagine that 
such a scene-” 

She stopped short, utterly aghast. 

Swift as a flash of pure white light, but without 
departing from her dignity, Irene had slipped across 
the room and taken possession of the throne-like chair 
just vacated. 

44 I thank you, Madame,” she said very calmly, 44 for 
your courtesy in yielding.” 

Marchioness Elvira sheathed the look of passionate 
hatred which flashed from her eyes, and glanced towards 
the Marquis for counsel. 

During some instants he gave no sign of intelligence; 
then he sank, a shrivelled heap, more deeply into his 
chair. 

The time had come for Elvira to act; to attack her 
victorious rival, or to retire from the field. 

44 1 believe the Marquis desired us to adjourn this 
discussion,” she said unexpectedly; and with perfect 
self-command, her countenance haughtier than ever 
before, she took the seat of the heir-presumptive. 



Chapter 21 


The Banquet 


From his great throne-like chair, Jean Marie Frangois, 
Marquis de La Villeratelle, Lord of the Manor of Cour- 
de-France, the last of an old and illustrious line, sat 
surveying his guests. There was bitterness in his heart, 
despair in his soul; but his mind teemed with fiery 
darts, with ideas dead before he could seize them, yet 
which kept alive a brooding hope for revenge. 

Opposite to him, enthroned in state, was the woman 
he had married and had learned to despise and to de¬ 
test; the woman to whom he had given his name, the 
woman whom he had held in serf-like subjection until 
this hour : and now she had evaded his snares, had de¬ 
fied him, had triumphed over him, and at this very 
moment faced him, calm and superb in the conscious¬ 
ness of his humiliation. 

That she possessed strength, could never again be 
denied; but the use her inexperience might make of 
that strength was an open question. She was newly 
roused from an apathy so prolonged as to offer chances 
for a relapse; or she might wear away her nervous 
energy in trivial efforts to maintain her advantage. 
Either way, she could be drawn from the position on 
which she had won, and then would follow the real 
battle for supremacy. 

Through the thick lenses aiding his vision, the 
200 


201 


THE BANQUET 

Marquis could see her, smaller than life, but extremely 
distinct, prismatic colours playing round her white- 
robed figure; with his dulled and deafened ears, he 
could catch fragments of her talk as she pretended to 
be at ease—he wished to believe it could be but pre¬ 
tence. His infirm eyes saw her not as she was, his 
afflicted ears heard her not as she spoke, his undone 
brain grasped nothing of what she might represent to 
any save himself, her lord and master. She was not 
a fair statue of finely-wrought silver and ivory—for 
him; her voice was not filled with a subdued music and 
a thrilling charm all its own—for him; her look, her 
movements, her very immobility, did not reveal a rare 
soul, a pure spirit, a true woman—for him. 

At his right, reduced to a minor throne symbolic 
of a power existing but in hope, was the woman he 
esteemed, the woman who stood sponsor to all his acts, 
the guardian jealous for his interests, the sharer in 
both the law and the letter of his thoughts. He had 
seen her outraged, when he had himself been defied; 
he had wanted to speak, to defend her, to assert him¬ 
self, but his tongue had failed him, his ideas, each 
sufficient to annihilate a host, had scattered, as they so 
often did when he was taken unfairly by surprise; so 
he had been fain to rely on her for a double victory. 
Yet she, and he, had both been beaten by that vixenish 
creature in white, whom he had scorned too much and 
hated not enough, and who, profiting by his weakness 
and the devotion of his ally, had arisen against them. 
Elvira, the regal Elvira, had been defeated and 
humbled, like himself, but at least had not deserted 


202 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

him. She had accepted her reverse, for a time; she sat 
there subdued, for a time; but her resolve, her self- 
command, had transformed a lost battle into a draw; 
it was far from impossible that the advantage might 
now pass to her side, and she had at her disposal in¬ 
valuable resources. Her olive cheeks were flushed; her 
brown eyes burned with the glow of smooth, hot steel; 
she sat so erect that the side of the table to which she 
had been relegated became the head, the place of honour 
and of authority whence she ruled an insignificant house¬ 
hold, an infirm old man and a mere girl in white. The 
last Marquis de La Villeratelle relaxed his features in 
the shadow of a smile; and he rubbed his hands slyly 
together, concealed beneath the cloth. 

But he did not see her, or hear her, or understand 
her, as she was. She did not appear as a formidable 
figure of vindictiveness—for him; her deep, impatient 
breathing did not contain threats of violence by word 
and deed—for him; her expression did not reveal a 
contempt superior to love, an intrigue stronger than 
honesty, tradition, or prejudice, a self-will dominating 
all human tastes, frailties, and faculties—for him. He 
saw only that she was beautiful and ominous; and 
therein, at least, he was right. 

Then he examined, in profile, those two scions of an 
ancient and respected house, one of them having an 
uncertain claim, and the other a more remote connec¬ 
tion; their images, clear and prismatic in his glasses, 
were stamped in his seething brain, and remained there 
to haunt him. Why should they both be here, to-night, 
as by common accord, to defy and defeat him? He 


203 


THE BANQUET 

noted the looks they cast at the Marchioness de La 
Villeratelle, the wife who had been no wife to him, and 
who had now denounced and shamed him publicly. He 
read aright in those faces ; he knew that both men loved 
her, and that each, believing himself to be favoured, 
was blind to the other’s love. He hated them alike as 
rivals and as obstructions; hated them because they 
were young and sound and handsome; hated them 
because they dared to stand a chance for winning affec¬ 
tions denied to himself; hated them because they had 
thwarted his vengeance upon that white-faced, white- 
dressed woman and the man who might not have been 
her lover but had been so regarded by the world. 

How carefully the plan had been laid, for the events 
of this night which had failed just because that blunder¬ 
ing American, Lawrence, had arrived inopportunely, 
and that intriguing Frenchman, de Laurency, had con¬ 
certed with him! Well might they love the same 
woman, those two : and might they live but to cut one 
another’s throats ! After all, why not ? Rivals in love 
and in position, without fully knowing it; let the bomb, 
nicely aimed, Re hurled between them at the right 
moment, and something must happen—much might 
happen. See how they both watched the Marchioness, 
from their opposite sides; they knew she would need a 
champion, they awaited the moment to act. If they 
were both to act together, she would have to favour 
one; and so the other would be ablaze. Which? The 
Marquis looked more closely, his glasses held at an 
angle so that his eyes could not be seen. Since enter¬ 
ing the banquet-hall, Irene had not noticed Gilbert 


204 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Lawrence, not once even by inadvertence; to avoid 
him with such care, she must be constantly thinking 
of the place he occupied. Excellent management, re¬ 
flected the Marquis; only, he knew. 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle sank more deeply into 
his carved and coroneted chair. Until that moment, 
whatever had occurred had been reflected dimly in his 
mind as in a clouded mirror; he had observed faces 
and attitudes, but as for words or actions, he had been 
heedless, allowing his own thoughts to befog direct 
impressions. 

He was aware that Irene had spoken, and Elvira, too ; 
the battle had not been reopened in these skirmishes. 
But a change was imminent. The Marchioness, his 
legal wife, was prepared for a decisive issue : he saw it 
in the poise of her head, in the firmness of her lips ; and 
he waited. 

Calmly, with the critical eye of an experienced 
hostess, she glanced along the great table which, 
under its load of cold meats and its general atmosphere 
of gloom, suggested a death-feast. She sought neither 
her husband, nor her rival, nor either of her admirers. 

The Marquis waited. 

When she spoke, it was to give a brief order to 
Gazeaux. 

Next moment, with unbroken serenity, she repeated 
her order. 

Then, as if this were disposed of, she gave a fresh 
command, as trivial as the first. 

Gazeaux had stood dumb and expressionless with 
consternation. The Marquis had affected not to hear. 


205 


THE BANQUET 

On the disdainful features of Marchioness Elvira, an 
expression of triumph dawned. But there are stormy 
dawns to herald lightless days. 

The Marchioness de La Villeratelle turned. She did 
not change colour, nor did she raise her voice. Only 
one word came : 

66 Gazeaux!” 

It was spoken with a slightly metallic resonance, 
which, striking the ear of the Marquis, made him 
start. 

Docile as a sheep without a leader in the desert, 
Gazeaux went to her call, and did as she had bidden. 

The Marchioness had won a second victory, more 
remarkable than the first. 

Observant but inactive, the Marquis had allowed the 
situation to develop, because he had not believed such 
an ending possible. His prestige, his position, his very 
life were at stake. 

He did not rise in his chair; he assumed no air of 
mastery. He allowed sufficient time for Gazeaux to 
acquit himself scrupulously of the orders given by a 
mistress who had never before been obeyed. Then he 
made a mysterious, all but imperceptible, sign. Gazeaux 
alone saw it, and he alone could have understood. For 
the Marquis de La Villeratelle had at least one secret 
unshared with his Spanish Marchioness. 

That sign was a signal for much noise to be made, 
unostentatiously and as it were unintentionally, with 
such articles as might be available to this end. It 
meant a rattling of plates and dishes, a clinking of 
glasses and decanters, a shifting of chairs and tables, 


206 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


a shuffling of heavy feet. At such moments, Gazeaux 
was accused of clumsiness, but he bore the reproach 
with fortitude; and his instructions were carried out 
so cleverly that no purpose had ever been apparent. 
The true purpose, however, could never have been 
guessed. 

The Marquis did not desire to be further deafened. 
On the contrary, he had observed a strange phenomenon 
of his deafness. Ordinary material noises formed a 
species of curtain of sound, against which human voices 
reached him with a precision they never possessed when 
all was still. In an uproar deafening for normal ears, 
the Marquis, unsuspected by those surrounding him, 
could overhear very nearly everything. 

As if to assure a better service, Gazeaux began to 
pass dishes, to remove plates, to fill glasses, to change 
forks and knives, with the speed of one possessed, and 
without regard for manners. Those who would speak 
had no choice but to raise their voices; and the 
Marquis, toying with whatever was placed before him, 
watched and listened like a panther in its tree. Only, 
he was more dangerous than a panther; because, 
though visible, he was impenetrable; because he judged 
with the eyes and the ears not of a beast who could be 
but a beast, he judged as a man stirred by bestial 
thirsts. So Gazeaux flew from place to place, a 
zealous messenger of evil, an irresponsible, unattainable 
agent, an active, all but ubiquitous force, while the 
enigmatical will in control crouched, wordless and 
motionless, biding its time, watching a remote pigmy 
world, highly coloured and singularly clear. 


207 


THE BANQUET 

The Marchioness de La Villeratelle was speaking. 
What the Marquis could hear—for parts escaped him 
—drove dismay and humiliation from him, in his 
passionate longing for a vengeance which would 
annihilate her, and all she stood for, and all who loved 
her, for ever. 

66 These old houses!” he heard her say. 6 ‘ Pictur¬ 
esque, of course; but how uncomfortable ! I wouldn’t 
have the exterior of the Manor changed, of course; 
it’s too picturesque; but some day we must really have 
it rebuilt so we can live in it. If only our secret 
passages, for instance, served a useful purpose; but 
they go nowhere that’s practical. I discovered one of 
them, perfectly finished and in every way complete, 
which foolishly connects two adjacent windows! 
For my part, I should prefer better connections 
between dining-room and kitchen. Some of them serve 
instead of halls, heaven knows why, because space isn’t 
what lacks here; and we poor women of the house have 
to dress specially to allow for that, in slim old-fashioned 
dresses, so as not to get stuck, and starve and die, and 
turn to skeletons before anybody comes and finds us by 
accident. No; I never could imagine what those pas¬ 
sages were for, save to play hide-and-seek in summer, 
and carry forced draughts to freeze us all in winter!” 
And he heard her laugh. 

66 My family!” he heard her say. “ I was never sure 
if I had a family or not. My father knew his father’s 
name, and not much more, unless perhaps his grand¬ 
father’s, too. Our papers were lost during the Revolu¬ 
tion, like everybody else’s, and we didn’t like Louis 


208 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


XVIII., so we wouldn’t ask the Restoration to invent 
for us whatever was missing in our ancestry. The 
Marquis traced out something very fine for us, and 
made my father swallow it, and gave me many oppor¬ 
tunities for improving my views. I suppose he must 
know; he’s a recognised authority. But it was such a 
while ago; and I really care so little, though I may 
amuse myself by occupying a throne at home!” And 
he heard her laugh. 

“ Traditions !” he heard her say. 66 They are often 
very pretty. Those I like best are about fairies, and 
nymphs and dryads. My confessor tells me I’m a pagan 
at heart. That is my punishment for liking so much 
as one sort of tradition, and the most harmless! For 
the rest, I suppose they fill up idle moments among 
people who have never learned to live. To one who 
has always been immured in a convent or a castle, like 
me, they might represent life, I suppose; yet they don’t 
in my case. When they do inspire me—it’s not often! 
—I have no desire to dream and to be idle and artificial; 
instead, I am taken with wild yearnings to break away 
not only from my present, but from all that sort of 
past. Even this apology for a play to-night didn’t 
amuse me. The idea of making us act it ourselves, 
without suspecting it, had originality. But the plot 
was so weak !” And he heard her laugh. 

“ We must adapt ourselves, I suppose,” he heard 
her say. 

He allowed her to go no further. 

“ Madame,” he said to Elvira, in the resonant tone 
he could adopt in his most cruel moods, “ Madame, 


209 


THE BANQUET 

you are not eating. I trust you have not been incon¬ 
venienced by a scene which I deplore for your sake, as 
for that of my guests?” 

The Spanish Marchioness drew herself up haughtily. 

fi< I make allowances,” she said. 

Irene had waited, reserved and dignified, while the 
Marquis spoke. Her reply was addressed to her 
rival: 

“ I am relieved to hear that, Madame. During many 
dreary months I have had to live making allow¬ 
ances for others—while none appeared to be made 
for me.” 

The Marquis flashed upon her : 

“ Enough of bickering! I desire that this meal 
should proceed in peace. Your sister and myself make 
excuses for you, and we address, in your name, excuses 
to our guests, because of your condition. Let that 
suffice.” 

Pale and superb, the Marchioness leaned forward 
in her great chair; one arm, resting on the table, was 
perfect in its immobility. But the hand which she 
kept hidden tore to shreds a handkerchief of rare lace. 
She knew that the Marquis had evolved a new plan, 
and that it was developing to his satisfaction; but she 
had not caught the clue. 

“ What, pray, is there in my condition to necessi¬ 
tate excuses?” she asked. 

6e Can I penetrate a woman’s whims and follies?” 
he retorted curtly. 66 You fainted from hysteria, while 
I was playing with my Chinese music-box. Even if you 
did get mixed in with the machinery, where you had 

14 


210 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


no business to be, before the music began to play, that 
was no reason for half-dying of fright.” 

Irene darted towards him a look of scorn mingled 
with apprehension; she saw, now, the turn he was 
about to take; how he would distort all facts, and 
accuse others of inventing whatever went contrary to 
his plans. She saw, and suddenly all her courage for¬ 
sook her; she was once more alone, and hopeless, and 
bewildered, in this Manor of many woes. 

Gilbert Lawrence spoke for her : 

44 Marquis, such machinery may cause death—or 
mutilation.” 

44 Quite true,” the Marquis grinned. 

44 So you call it a music-box ?” 

44 Yes.” 

44 1 heard you call it a torture-chamber.” 

44 Speaking to you?” 

44 No, to your steward.” 

44 When and where?” 

44 In the draperies. That is why I went to that room, 
asking your wife to conduct me. I knew what you 
proposed to do there.” 

The Marquis smiled with an irony containing an 
extraordinary sting of insult: 

44 You must allow me, Mr. Lawrence, to protest 
against some of the stories you have invented about 
me, and have repeated, here within my own house. As 
you yourself have remarked, you were not altogether 
a guest; yet you were under my roof, and appeared 
willing to remain. You have spent much of your time 
watching me, listening as well as observing, hiding 


THE BANQUET 211 

behind curtains and making your reports in odd places, 
without inquiring how agreeable this would be to me. 
In other words, you have tried to be a sort of self- 
appointed spy over me. Well, it may interest you to 
learn that, all the while, I have had you under the 
closest possible observation. I don’t claim to know 
your motives; but these stories you have been so in¬ 
dustriously circulating about my actions and my inten¬ 
tions have all been made up by you. If you were 
not at my table, I might go further and speak 
plainly.” 

Gilbert sprang up. 

44 The words you have spoken are sufficient, 
Marquis.” 

Yet he stood as he had arisen; his eyes were on 
Irene. 

She had not stirred since he had commenced to 
speak. 

44 You must come,” he whispered. 

She flashed upon him a look of contempt which 
struck him like cold steel between the eyes. 

Elvira rose, majestic and triumphant. 

44 I think,” she said, speaking once more as mistress 
of the Manor, 44 that we shall withdraw.” 

44 Withdraw?” the Marquis repeated. 

It was not what he had meant to say. 

His expression had altered, and his voice failed him; 
he clung to the edge of the table with both hands; his 
eyes, peering through their glasses, were fixed on an 
object across the room. Then, suddenly, he collapsed 
into his chair, one arm outstretched, his jaw agape, 


212 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


only his eyes still staring fixedly, as if held by a 
paralysing vision. 

He was pointing towards a door. All looked in that 
direction. 

The Baron de Vernac stepped in, pale as a ghost, 
save for a wound seaming his face with red. 


Chapter 22 


The Challenge 


“ You ask why I am here?” 

The Baron de Vernac made an evil grimace. With 
his scarred and earth-stained face, with his torn and 
disordered clothes, he was not good to look upon. 
Indeed, if his expression fell short of fiendishness, it 
was because of the malice which may mitigate even 
violence for the sake of a joke. 

No one had spoken before he put his question; but 
it had been simple enough to read in their eyes. 

“ Why I am here ?” he repeated. 46 Ask rather why 
I was brought here. I’m not able to answer. Per¬ 
haps the Marquis can.” 

There was a tense silence. 

“No?” de Vernac continued. “Then how about 
that person, yonder, who has grown so proud since 
stepping into dead men’s shoes—two dead men, mind 
you?” 

Alain de Laurency started. 

“ Marquis,” he said, “ a while ago I consented for 
you to have priority on the attention of M. de Vernac. 
I felt I could wait, out of courtesy to you. But being 
directly and publicly insulted, I now insist on the right 
to speak first, which was mine originally.” 

The Marquis de La Villeratelle stared stupidly. 

“I regret to see you hesitate, Marquis,” Alain de 
213 


214 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Laurency continued. “It is true that such a con¬ 
versation should not be held here. With your con¬ 
sent, I shall pursue it elsewhere.” 

“You lack my consent, which is just as important,” 
said de Vernac. “ I haven’t yet got my wits about me, 
and I don’t pretend to know all that’s happened to me 
since that heir to two dead men, over there, backed 
by that makeshift gendarme of a steward, on the other 
side, got me to drinking and so dragged me to the 
Manor of Cour-de-France.” 

“ The gentleman admits he has not his wits : I sup¬ 
pose his words may be ignored for the present ?” Alain 
de Laurency glanced at the Marquis as he put the ques¬ 
tion, but received neither word nor look nor sign in 
reply. 

“ Funny little disconnected pictures are cropping up 
in my mind,” de Vernac resumed. “ I can almost 
patch out a story from them. One thing I’m sure of 
already : every person present has been a witness, if not 
a party, to extraordinary indignities inflicted on me. 
How could I feel under any sort of obligations ? 
Though I apologise to the ladies, of course. Perhaps 
they may graciously recognise, first, that it can’t be 
helped, and secondly, that I’m satisfying their legi¬ 
timate curiosity. They know what’s been done; they 
might as well know why.” 

From all appearances the Marquis had heard nothing, 
or had understood nothing. Indeed, Gazeaux, seized 
with consternation, had been inactive, the curtain of 
noise had fallen, and so sounds may have carried 
imperfectly. 


THE CHALLENGE 215 

He put on a convivial air, ghastly in its contrast 
with the sentiments surrounding him. 

66 Baron,” he said, “ you are welcome. You arrive 
just in time. Gazeaux!” 

As at a prearranged signal, Gazeaux produced bottles 
of champagne and began to fill the glasses. Alain de 
Laurency and the Baron de Vernac remained rooted 
where they stood, darting defiance at each other; the 
two Marchionesses and Gilbert Lawrence watched the 
Marquis. 

66 Baron, your place awaits you,” the Marquis con¬ 
tinued, pointing to the seat on his left, beside Gilbert 
Lawrence. “We were about to drink a toast. You 
must join us.” 

That offer could not well be declined ; and that place, 
separated from Alain de Laurency, could be accepted 
without sitting down. 

The Baron de Vernac advanced and, still standing, 
took his glass. Alain de Laurency, who had moved 
away from the table, did not offer to return. 

“ M. de Laurency-” The Marquis raised his 

glass as a challenge. 

Alain had no choice but to comply; only, he stood at 
his place, like de Vernac. 

“ I ask you to drink with me, gentlemen, to the 
righting of a wrong,” the Marquis said. “ There is 
one among us, bearing an illustrious name, heir to an 
ancient title, who, with a correctness worthy of noble 
blood, hesitated to assume a rank which might have 
been disputed. The matter was referred to me, and I 
reserved my opinion, which I am now prepared to give.” 


216 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


He paused, like one well versed in making effects. 
All eyes were upon him. 

66 1 have every reason to believe that the same view 
will be taken by the Council of State, because it rests 
on facts.” 

Gilbert Lawrence, standing and holding his glass 
like the others, tried to control a slight tremor of his 
hand. 

66 Gentlemen,” said the Marquis, 64 I drink to the 
health and the happiness of my esteemed friend Alain, 
Count de Laurency.” 

All glasses were raised save that of Gilbert Lawrence. 
The Baron de Vernac, however, raised his to toss it 
over his shoulder to the floor. As if by common assent, 
no notice was taken of this insult to hosts and guests 
alike. 

The newly-recognised Count spoke : 

“ Marquis, I am all the more sensible to your words 
since I know that no opinion carries such weight as 
yours. May I hope for your active support in the 
event of possible opposition?” 

“ None is admissible,” the Marquis answered. 

“ I was sure of my ground, as far as my relations in 
France were concerned. But I confess that a branch 
which, I have heard, exists in America-” 

66 Does it?” The Marquis leaned forward with a 
piercing look intensified by his glasses. 

Gilbert Lawrence stood frozen to immobility. Not 
only the remarks made by the Marquis had astounded 
him, but a still more severe blow had come when Irene, 
too, raised her glass. As acting, it might be good 


THE CHALLENGE 217 

policy. But such an act committed one irretrievably. 
And from her—to him- 

44 Why, you must surely know-” Alain de 

Laurency was replying. 

44 I know,” the Marquis interrupted sharply, 44 that 
there exists in America a family named Lawrence; and 
I have heard it pretends some of its originators once 
called themselves Laurency. Even should they prove 
so much—what then?” And, as if such a conclusion 
were past altering, he said: 44 If the Marchioness is 
ready, we shall pass into the drawing-room.” 

He addressed not his wife, but his sister-in-law, the 
Spanish Marchioness whom he had installed as mistress 
of his Manor. 

44 Gentlemen,” he continued, 44 will you follow? I 
have never cared for the English custom of lingering 
over the wine.” 

The Baron de Vernac spoke promptly but reso¬ 
lutely : 

44 You may have failed to observe, Marquis, that I 
did not drink your toast. The affront was not meant 
for you. I’m in your house, after all. I gather from 
the remarks of the dead-shoe individual, over there, that 
you have a quarrel to pick with me. Do you know, 
it’s an odd coincidence, but I’ve got the impression of 
a grudge against you, too. Somehow, in those hazy, 
disconnected pictures I’ve mentioned, you play quite a 
part. What’s more awkward yet is that I not only see 
you threatening me, but I hear you speaking very 
objectionable things.” 

The Marquis grew livid. 




218 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 I have proposed to adjourn,” he said. His voice 
was loud and harsh, but did not tremble. 

44 By all means,” de Vernac assented. 44 I am so 
far from desiring to quarrel with you at your own table, 
that I have apologised for having to decline your toast. 
You and I shall converse later—don’t you fear! But 
that person, over there, that disgrace to the title of 
Count which I am not convinced belongs to him, has 
offended me so that I demand swift reparation. When 
will you send your seconds to me, sir?” 

44 Seconds !” cried out Alain de Laurency. 44 If the 
facts are true, you deserve to have your head cut off-” 

44 Aha ! aha !” piped the Marquis, forgetting himself. 

44 By the guillotine,” Alain added hastily. 44 You 
are debarred from the dignity of duelling.” 

44 So you think to get away from me!” de Vernac 
sneered. 44 You fancy you can evade a fight! Why, 
my man, I can compel you to fight, seconds or no 
seconds! I shouldn’t care to shock these ladies by 
tweaking your nose for you; but I warn you, dead- 
shoe-” 

44 No need for further provocation,” said Alain de 
Laurency, white with anger. 44 Before ladies, such 
conduct is unqualifiable.” 

44 They have received my excuses; they are aware I 
have not all my wits about me. The Marchioness ”— 
the Baron bowed to Elvira— 44 has remained, I am sure, 
for the purpose of seeing fair play. And Madame ”— 
he bowed to Irene— 44 nobly abides by her sister. They 
witnessed my humiliation; they are good enough to be 
present at my rehabilitation.” 




THE CHALLENGE 


219 


44 That has not yet come,” Alain de Laurency re¬ 
plied sombrely. 44 You are charged with having foully 

slain my young cousin, the Viscount de Laurency-” 

44 I did!” 

44 You acknowledge it! And by a thrust given 
treacherously when you knew him to be wounded and 
disarmed-” 

44 The more fool he!” 

44 You refused reparation to his father, the 
Count- 99 

44 In his dotage! A pretty business, if I had killed 
him too!” 

44 You did—he died from grief.” 

44 There are more sorts of fools than one in your 
family.” 

44 You scoundrel! You brag of it?” 

44 No. You question and I answer.” 

While Alain de Laurency had flung self-control to 
the winds, de Vernac preserved a cool cynicism which 
served to quadruple the other’s rage. 

44 You have spoken several words of truth to-night 
in the presence of witnesses,” de Vernac resumed. 
44 Perhaps this is an atonement for some of your lies 
to me in private?” 

Alain de Laurency sprang forward. His way was 
barred by Gilbert Lawrence. 

44 One moment, please,” Gilbert said. 

44 Do you pretend to act for the Baron de Vernac?” 
Alain stormed. 

44 No. For the American branch of the Laurencys.” 

44 You know those people? What’s that to me?” 





220 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


Alain asked, surprised and puzzled, but chafing with 
impatience. 

66 1 am the head of that branch of the family,’’ 
Gilbert said quietly. 4 4 Need I add that I am quite 
sure, from the courtesy with which you replied to the 
toast of the Marquis a while ago, that you did not 
suspect the relationship. I should have preferred to 
take up this question later; not only because it is un¬ 
seemly now, but because I want the advice of properly 
qualified authorities.” 

He did not look towards the Marquis de La Villera- 
telle, but the blow struck home. The Marquis flushed 
for an instant, then frowned abstractedly. 

44 Now,” Gilbert continued, 44 1 am forced to declare 
myself. I did not come to France only for the sake of 
asserting my rights and defending them. I came pre¬ 
pared to assume all responsibilities dependent upon 
them. If M. de Vernac has been sincere in his acknow¬ 
ledgement of your grave charges; if, in a word, he has 
not merely sought a pretext for affronting you per¬ 
sonally, then this is not your quarrel, M. de Laurency, 
but mine.” 

The handsome blue eyes of Alain de Laurency nar¬ 
rowed insolently. 

44 If you will allow the remark,” he began with an 
exaggerated politeness which was infinitely insulting, 
44 1 may say you were happily inspired when admitting 
a later time might be preferable for this—revelation, 
shall we call it? At all events, you cannot deny my 
right to circumspection in admitting an unknown per¬ 
son into a family which, I am happy to observe, you 


THE CHALLENGE 


221 


respect as greatly as I do. I would suggest that you 
prove first that you are really connected with an 
American family now called Lawrence which formerly 
called itself legally and authentically ”—he paused, and 
repeated as a question: “ Did you say legally and 
authentically?—de Laurency. Next, I should want 
proof that the said Lawrence or Laurency family is 
connected, however remotely, with my own.” 

“ Refer me to any jurisdiction you please, and we 
shall discuss these details,” Gilbert said. 66 But since 
we have engaged in a dispute which cannot be delayed, 
perhaps you may accept as evidence the snuff-box of 
Charles, Count de Laurency, my Huguenot pro¬ 
genitor.” 

“ You have such a relic?” Alain asked, as if pounc¬ 
ing upon a prey. 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you can produce it?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ That would not exactly constitute evidence, and 
yet-” 

“ Yet you might accept it?” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ I want a firm answer.” 

“ Well—if I see it in your own hands—yes!” 

At this, Gilbert Lawrence touched the pocket where 
he habitually carried his most treasured relic. Just as 
he had shown well-bred reserve when Alain agreed to 
his proposition, so he did not betray his concern as he 
felt in one pocket after another, and his loss became 
evident to him. 


222 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ I am scarcely surprised at your not finding it,” 
Alain de Laurency said. 

66 Why not, pray?” 

“ Because there was only one such snuff-box, I 
believe, and that is not in your possession.” 

Gilbert was trying to collect his thoughts. He 
would have remembered the part played by Irene’s 
buckle in the Chinese Dressing-Room ; but the brief use 
made of the snuff-box had escaped him. 

66 What reasons have you for so positive an asser¬ 
tion?” Gilbert asked. 

66 Simply that the snuff-box you mention as evidence 
is in my pocket, not yours,” Alain said calmly, pro¬ 
ducing the little gold box and letting the light play on 
the enamel and the diamonds. (( Although I happen 
to be but collaterally descended from Charles, through 
his brother John-” 

“ The younger brother!” Gilbert interposed. 

“ But his marriage is a matter of record,” Alain re¬ 
torted in a way so marked that Gilbert flushed crimson. 

He drew from his coat pocket the portfolio of 
Morocco leather in which he had brought to France the 
papers relative to his pedigree. 

“ Do you care to examine my line of descent?” he 
asked haughtily. 

Then Alain saw his chance. 

“ We have a recognised authority present,” he said. 
“ If you are willing to submit those papers to the Mar¬ 
quis de La Villeratelle-” 

Gilbert had no choice; he spoke frankly and without 
hesitation. 




THE CHALLENGE 


223 


“ Marquis, a while ago I was surprised to hear you 
express an opinion in favour of my cousin, without so 
much as considering the proofs I might produce on my 
side. I demanded, as is natural, a legal decision. But 
I did not question your knowledge and your experience. 
The case between M. de Laurency and myself will be 
settled by the Council of State in good time. Mean¬ 
while, for the question in hand, may I appeal to your 
sense of fairness—after examining these documents?” 

Without uttering a word, the Marquis held out his 
hand and resumed his seat in the great throne-like arm¬ 
chair. Peering carefully with his defective eyes, he 
studied the parchments in the flickering candle-light. 

De Vernac laughed. 

<fi So I must wait to find out which throat I must cut 
next in the Lawrence-Laurency family?” 

But no one was in a mood for jesting; a heavy 
silence weighed upon the banquet-hall. 

Gilbert could for the first time, during that pause, 
reflect on the distress which overwhelmed him. He 
was rudely awakened to the certainty that the idyl 
between Irene and himself was ended. The cause— 
there could be but one—was not far to seek. She had 
seen, or had heard, or had been told, of that fatal 
“ experiment ” at a moment when, unless he belonged 
to her heart and soul, he could not be hers at all. 
That, no woman could ever forgive. 

The Marquis broke the silence. 

“ Of those two brothers, Charles and John, the 
younger, John, was married in the Church.” 

“ Yes,” Alain de Laurency confirmed. 


224 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“That is recorded by Pere Anselme.” The Mar¬ 
quis threw down Gilbert’s papers like so much trash. 
66 No authentic genealogies have been compiled since 
his day. As for Charles, the elder brother, you will 
find only his birth.” 

“ Yet his wife-” Gilbert broke in. 

“ If he had had a wife, the fact would have been 
recorded.” 


44 The proof is before you, in those papers you have 
cast aside.” 

“ I find no proofs to be added to Pere Anselme.” 

“ A Jesuit, who chronicled only what was to the 
interest of Jesuits!” Gilbert protested. 

44 Sufficient unto the day are its records.” 

“You will find in that letter,” Gilbert burst out 
furiously, “ the names, the time, the place, the wit¬ 
nesses ; particulars as to the Minister of the Reformed 
Religion-” 


“Oh! That!” the Marquis scoffed with a hideous 
leer. But a Protestant form did not constitute a 
marriage.” 

“ Then-” 


“Then others of your family in America, older and 
wiser than yourself, renounced idle pretensions,” said 
the Marquis, rising and thrusting back his great 
chair. 


Gilbert Lawrence strode forward. He had grown 
dangerously white about the lips. 

“Idle pretensions?” he repeated. “Judged by 
Jesuitical standards, perhaps—as exploited by inter¬ 
ested parties remaining at the court of His Most 



THE CHALLENGE 


225 


Christian Majesty. But legal proofs hold good over the 
fanaticism of sects, Marquis de La Villeratelle. ,, 

Elvira turned to Gazeaux with a commanding stare, 
and made a swift gesture. A moment more, and 
between them they had struck from the table the two 
many-branched candlesticks which had filled the room 
with light. 

A few of the candles rolled, with a trail like tiny 
comets, across the floor, and died out. 

The room was plunged in blackness, and the silence 
was scanned by the tread of stealthy feet. 


15 


In the Night 


Chapter 23 

But for the extinction of the lights, the Marquis would 
have been upon Gilbert the very next moment. Elvira 
had seen the look and the gesture towards a carving- 
knife that lay on the table. Did she really want to save 
Gilbert—or only to save the Marquis from crime? 

The darkness into which the hall was plunged filled 
the Marquis with terror. He watched the small comet¬ 
like sparks glide away and die, leaving black desolation 
about him; he hated them for having lived an instant, 
execrated them for their extinction. 

And then he, whose sight was short and whose ears 
were dull, felt his inner senses grow acute. It appeared 
to him that he saw, that he heard, with a vividness 
unparalleled in youth. He knew, or rightly guessed, 
who was near, who was passing or standing, who feared 
or who waited; they neither saw nor heard as he did, 
nor could they understand the mysteries which were 
to him as open books. In that Manor honeycombed 
with trap-doors, with masked exits, with secret pas¬ 
sages, he was master over events; in the hidden awe 
of deep night he was superior to mortals who saw and 
heard and thought according to the laws of sunlit 
hours. 

Gilbert Lawrence felt his way along the table’s edge; 
he reached the end, and put out his hand. All this, the 

226 


IN THE NIGHT 227 

Marquis knew as surely as if he himself had seen and 
heard. 

Irene stifled a scream, and then whispered : 

66 M. de Laurency?” 

66 Hush !” Gilbert Lawrence answered, not imitating 
the voice of his kinsman, but eliminating all quality 
from his own. 

How that word of hers must have brought death to 
his heart! So he would dissemble, and save her in the 
name of another—and she would not know, and he 
would not know that a witness knew, standing close 
beside him, undetected in the night. 

6i Is there a recess in any of these walls?” Gilbert 
whispered. 

<fi Yes—on my right,” Irene breathed. 

66 Lead me to it,” he said. 

They walked softly away together, their movements 
so rhythmic and harmonious that his arm must have 
been about her—or so the Marquis fancied. But he 
did not speak. He was exulting in his superiority, 
because he knew. 

Something aroused her suspicions. She asked : 

4 4 Is it M. Alain de Laurency?” 

“ Hush—hurry!” was the only answer she received. 

Inspired by his sense of power, of immunity, of 
supremacy, the Marquis brushed close beside them. 
They felt his touch, they were aware of a step, but 
they could not guess who it might be. The noise died 
away, the presence was intangible. Doors opened with 
a slight creak and closed with a sudden uproar. There 
were distant sounds—falls, blows, who could tell ? 


228 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


“ Take me away from here!” she pleaded. 

But they had reached the recess; Gilbert struck it 
as he threw out his hand. 

“Don’t lead me in!” Irene said. “There may be 
a panel to close on me. The niche was made for a 
statue; but the Marquis-” 

There was a tone of shuddering in her voice. All 
heroism, all spirit or defiance had gone; only feminine 
helplessness survived. 

“So this,” reflected the Marquis, in his triumph, 
“ is the way to tame her. She fancied herself the mis¬ 
tress of this Manor! I allowed her a little half-hour. 
But now—now?” 

For him, it was all his doing—her humiliation before 
him, when he knew, and she did not know he knew. 

There was something in the hesitation of Gilbert 
Lawrence which evidently alarmed her. She asked : 

“Is this—is this M. Alain de Laurency?” 

She was safe, at least for the moment; the full truth 
was due to her. 

“No,” came the halting reply. “I am Gilbert 
Lawrence.” 

She shook herself free. 

“You dared—you dared?” she panted. 

“I dare to rescue you,” he said. “Perhaps that 
task is not finished, even yet.” 

“You are mistaken.” She spoke with courage, with 
energy. “ The task is quite finished.” 

“At least, I may be assured of your safety?” he 
urged miserably. 

“ Will you leave me?” came her superb retort. 



IN THE NIGHT 


229 


“ Can you find your way out of this room, alone?” 

44 I can at least stay in it alone.” 

“ Is this possible?” he exclaimed. 44 All because I 
tried to escape from my bonds-” 

(( Your bonds!” she repeated, still low but with 
vibrating voire. 44 Is that the name you give to your 
pledges? I saw you break your 4 bonds, 5 as you are 
pleased to call them. I am grateful to you for breaking 
them!” 

44 You saw-” 

44 1 saw the weight you attach to words and pledges,” 
she said, and fled from him through the dark. 

As Gilbert was starting in pursuit, he felt cold steel 
upon his temple. Nothing more happened—there was 
just that touch of cold steel. He reached out in all 
directions; he plunged across the room, and back; he 
cried out, in anger, in defiance, for his hidden enemy 
to face him. 

But the Marquis de La Villeratelle, triumphant and 
supreme, had drawn aside, into that very shelter the 
Marchioness had refused; he crouched there, jeering 
at these pigmies who had strength which availed them 
only in the light and in the open, by such paltry 
methods as they termed fair. 

Creeping out, he rested against his tall, throne-like 
chair, and thought—thought as a twisted brain like his 
was capable of thinking, in its moments of exultation. 

Take this banquet, planned as a death-feast, and all 
that should have come before, all that should have 
followed. What dupes he could have made of these 
vain people, these drivelling dwarfs! Even Elvira— 




230 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


for she had believed in a comedy. He had driven her 
on to suggest it, by pouring out his suspicions and con¬ 
fessions in such form that she must be prompted to 
plagiarise Hamlet; and then he had prepared the 
further suggestion from her that the culprits them¬ 
selves should be the unconscious actors. The fascina¬ 
tion of seeing others play unsuspectingly their parts 
had taken possession of her, as of him. They two, 
alone, should know—while the others acted. And he 
himself would know that Elvira did not know. Rare 
sport, indeed! 

Of it all, only the capture of the Baron de Vernac, 
and the trial scene, and now this dreary feast, had been 
fulfilled. Because the Chinese Dressing-Room had 
come as an impulse of desperate revenge, when he saw 
himself outplayed. 

At this banquet, preceding the final act, there was 
to have been drugged wine, which he had not so much 
as remembered in time. Besides, what purpose would 
it have served, de Vernac being released and the whole 
plot exploded? Instead, suppose Alain de Laurency, 
half maudlin and wholly indifferent in his chair, on 
Elvira’s right; de Vernac, on her left, not daring to 
resist her wiles, for fear of arousing suspicions about 
Irene; and Irene herself, subdued, impassive, ghost¬ 
like, seated humbly between them, ready to follow 
when they adjourned. 

A beginning of acting—as a joke, of course; then- 
then— 

The eyes of the Marquis glowed with a light of their 
own. 


IN THE NIGHT 


231 


He saw Gazeaux, disguised as a headsman, go sud¬ 
denly mad—as a joke. Who could suspect what lay 
beneath such madness? Why, those still able to see 
and to think would only look and laugh from their 
places. 

So he saw Gazeaux, quite mad, seize the Baron de 
Vernac, stupid with drugs, and throw him on the block, 
while none observed or none realised. 

He saw the head of de Vernac fly off, at the flash 
of an axe, and bounce away. 

What screams from Elvira! From Irene, too, and 
from himself, of course. They would all leap upon 
mad Gazeaux, infamous, murderous Gazeaux, harking 
back to the foul trade of his ancestors. . . . Blood 
will tell! 

How easy, how easy! And how sure of success, how 
full of guarantees for escape! Gazeaux, consigned to 
the mad-house, would not talk, but rave. Elvira, 
trembling for her freedom, would be cowed into re¬ 
nouncing certain troublesome jealousies. As for Irene 
—well, her conduct must decide her fate. Perhaps he 
need not, after all, be the last Marquis de La Vil- 
leratelle; else he might forcibly prevent her from being 
the last Marchioness. 

And all this ruined, gone forever, turned against 
him, because of those two accursed Laurency claimants ! 
At least, they suspected nothing. 

Or did they not? There had been an argument 
between himself and Gilbert Lawrence about the parch¬ 
ment conferring upon him—or his ancestors, which 
amounted to the same—the right of life and death at 


232 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

the Manor of Cour-de-France. This had been royal 
property : on these grounds, he was a king. Why had 
he argued childishly over some trivial point ? He 
forgot just what. Had his brain weakened- 

That thought brought a shock. He had fears, at 
times; fears which he craftily concealed. Those 
peculiar, indescribable sensations in the night; that 
rousing and reeling at each dawn, always at dawn; that 
noise of a snapping spring, at moments when his will 
was rudely crossed. He had preserved his secret, had 
deceived the world, had guarded his sanity by fleeing, 
by fleeing and hiding until the crisis had passed; and 
then by lying, or accusing others of lies. 

Was this labour to be lost, or was he to be undone, 
was his triumph to be dulled and shamed, because his 
faculties had weakened this one night ? He must 
retrieve himself; must rise above these mere worms; 
must dominate, must subjugate, though his life, though 
his reason, were paid as forfeit. 

The consciousness of power filled him; and, with his 
reawakened vanity, the thirst for deceitfulness too 
arose, passionate and imperative, to heat his blood and 
ferment his brain and control his desires. What 
puppets he could still make of these people, who so short 
a while before had defied him; what puppets, what sorry 
fools, what facile victims! If they had almost con¬ 
quered him, if they had baffled and humiliated him, it 
was because he had allowed himself to be drawn out 
from the secret places. 

He limped away in the extreme blackness, stopping to 
listen, then hurrying, hurrying, to atone for those brief 



IN THE NIGHT 233 

instants lost. A friendly chance threw Gazeaux in his 
way. They clutched, neither knowing the other. 

“ There have been no orders!” the faithful steward 
pleaded, almost dead with fear at having attacked his 
master. 

66 Follow me!” panted the Marquis, giving instrue* 
tions as he hastened on. 

They closed familiar doors, and opened new unsus¬ 
pected ones; they transformed secret passages into com¬ 
municating halls, while they condemned apartments of 
state; they bolted windows, secured locks, removed 
keys and knobs so that the very existence of certain 
exists should not be suspected. Straining together, 
they shifted furniture, leaving no single piece in an 
accustomed position; they drew forth strange, grue¬ 
some articles hoarded in hiding-places, and scattered 
them wherever they might cause surprise and alarm; 
they placed pistols, daggers, swords of assorted sizes 
upon tables and cabinets, they heaped them in stacks 
on the floors. In a surprisingly short while, they had 
rendered the interior of the Manor unrecognisable. A 
stranger entering it might perhaps have felt his way 
along, with care, avoiding obstacles and not expecting 
to understand. But anyone familiar with the ground 
would be puzzled, disconcerted, and totally lost. 

There had been moments when feet had wandered 
near the workers, and when whispers had sounded in 
the dark. The Marquis had ordered Gazeaux to remain 
quite still, should this happen, and to press his arm as 
a warning, and to make neither sound nor movement 
until the person, whoever it might be, had passed on. 


234 


ADVENTURE,IN THE NIGHT 


So Elvira passed, bewildered, calling softly for her lord, 
who heard her, and rejoiced while not answering; so 
Alain de Laurency and the Baron de Vernac passed, 
singly, each cursing and seeking the other, and talking 
of swords they had picked up ; so the Marchioness passed, 
and so Gilbert Lawrence, both silent, both disconsolate, 
and each unaware of the other. The Marquis breathed 
after them all: “ You fools ! It is my time to see and 
to hear l" 

To see? But suppose they struck lights? He and 
Gazeaux now set upon the piles of torches, they sought 
the candles from the banquet-hall, and counted them 
like misers; all were thrown into cupboards, with a 
wreckage of lamps. 

His guests were prisoners, and in the dark, the Mar¬ 
quis reflected; he need not speed his vengeance, but 
should rather taste the sweets of their confusion. What 
might they not say to one another, meeting, under 
such conditions; what might they not do, influenced by 
dismay, or despair, or even madness? Because they 
might well go mad, the lot of them. No, no, he must 
not precipitate their end. Only, what should that end 
be? He might prepare it before indulging himself at 
their expense. 

But thoughts, which had raced so gleefully through 
his head while it had only been a question of changing 
the Manor into a maze, did not present themselves for 
more serious purposes. 

In truth, he had not made up his mind as to the ven¬ 
geance he wanted—how severe it should be, and how 
general. He wanted first to assert his superiority and 


IN THE NIGHT 


235 


to revel in it. If that brought him adequate pleasure, 
why do more ? He could always rely on the traps with 
which the floors of the Manor were riddled, to dispose 
of his victims one by one; and should he decide upon 
a general sacrifice- 

Then inspiration came. They could be roasted alive 
in that part of the house which enclosed the Chinese 
Dressing-Room. Two furnace fires still burned there, 
one on either side. Let the hot coals be scattered 
judiciously, and a slow blaze would be started which 
would presently sweep that entire wing. He could 
drive his victims thither like sheep, by imitating steps 
and whispers, opening doors ahead and closing them 
behind so as to cut off a retreat. Even should the con¬ 
flagration spread—what then? He would be pulling 
down his temple in ruins to crush his enemies at one 
stroke. Heroic conclusion, worthy of his ancestors! 
He could save himself, of course; and perhaps Elvira. 
As to that, he must see. For he was not entirely sure 
of Elvira. 

Cat-like, he crept on the trail of his intended victims, 
after whispering final instructions to Gazeaux. They 
were simple and comprehensive : to mystify in every 
imaginable manner whoever might come near or who, 
being overheard, could be followed. 



The Darkest Hour 


Chapter 24 

The words spoken by Irene, as she tore herself away 
from him in the dark, had explained everything to 
Gilbert. She had not realised he was bound and help¬ 
less, when he had tried to buy from Elvira his freedom 
with that fatal kiss. And now, attempting an inade¬ 
quate explanation, he had succeeded only in driving 
the offence more deeply home. 

But that swift impulsive, or rather repulsive, act of 
hers in running from him, filled him with an alarm 
sufficient to quell both sentiment and emotion. What! 
Irene making her way, through the dark, threatened by 
madmen? His own folly had forfeited his right to 
defend or even to aid her. Yet he started in pursuit. 

44 I don’t know where I went,” he told me, 44 nor 
what I felt and heard, nor whom I touched, during the 
time which followed—nor have I an idea of the time. 
For sheer horror, that period stands alone. 

44 I was in rooms which proved to be not rooms, in 
passages which turned and widened and ceased to be 
passages ; I struck against doors secured so as to be like 
rocks, and I leaned to rest against walls which melted 
away into space. 

44 Strange creaks and groans resounded above, below, 
on all sides, and, as it were, in mid-air; there were 
whispering voices which might have been the wind, and 
plaintive breaths which had a human quality. 

236 


THE DARKEST HOUR 


237 


“ Long swinging draperies struck me in the face, of 
a sudden, and I fancied myself in the death-chamber; 
but when I reached out towards the wall, I advanced 
several paces and knew I must be in some other room 
with a different spacing, though perhaps ready for an 
equally gruesome purpose. I went on and on, clinging 
to the draperies to guide my steps; and presently they 
loosened in my grasp, and fell over me and buried me, 
all but smothered me. I struggled for a seeming 
eternity in those cloying, mouldy, sickening folds, 
embracing me like a dead-sea octopus with a thousand 
tentacles. 

66 With it all, no light—no light anywhere, not even 
in the heavens; I knew, from the howling wind and the 
beating rain, that the sky had clouded over; I did not 
yet suspect that all the windows had been hermetically 
shuttered. But that thought came soon enough. No 
lights—why, of course, some fiend had methodically 
gone the rounds. There had been lights, other than 
those candles struck out by the order of Elvira to save 
my life from the attack of the Marquis. Here, at 
least, was no thought of charity. Had it been 
charity even there ? I could not think. Only the rank 
oppression of those stifling draperies made me want to 
think. As soon as I was free, I hurried on. 

“ Where ? I have said I could not tell. Anywhere, 
as long as by moving I increased my chances for finding 
Irene, for protecting her, for saving her in spite of 
herself. 

“ In the absolute blackness I touched strange 
objects, suggesting nothing I had ever seen or felt 


238 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


before; and the rooms through which I wandered were 
all unknown to me. There were odd articles, boxes, 
carvings, crystals or porcelains, absurdly out of place. 
I overturned some, and broke them, which did not 
matter, save for the infernal row they made. There 
would often be a responsive crash beyond—unless that 
was an echo. 

“ Weapons, strewn about as if to tempt me, aroused 
an indefinable sense of disquiet. They did tempt me, 
after a while; but they proved to be flintless old rusted 
pistols, or swords and daggers fast in useless scabbards. 

“ Once my hand struck something which must have 
been a skeleton strung on wires; and my fingers were 
constantly getting mixed in with inexplicable, odious, 
slimy objects. 

“ Presently I wanted to cry out, just to hear a voice, 
to break this ghostly monotony of vile, senseless, in¬ 
appropriate articles. I wanted the sound of a voice in 
my ears, and I hoped to rouse a response from the Mar¬ 
quis himself. If I could have found him, I promise 
you he would not have escaped before solving these 
mysteries and bringing a light—above all things, 
bringing a light! 

<e Then, as if driven on by a power controlling my 
will, I knocked into a cabinet, which swung round and 
bore me with it. I was projected into the familiar 
closet-like space I have called a postern. 

“ So the room from which I had just come, the room 
where I had groped about like a lost soul, was the very 
room of all others which I knew best, since I had passed 
there repeatedly, and had sat there talking with the 


THE DARKEST HOUR 


239 


Marquis, and had waited there after he had limped 
away on one of his mysterious errands. The trans¬ 
formation of that room was enough to make me believe 
in sorcery—unless it shook my faith in my sanity. 

44 The door was open. I stepped out into a wild, 
free, glorious night, letting the wind whip the rain 
against my cheeks. The idea of exploring the Manor 
from without occurred to me. 

44 There was neither sign nor sound nor light. 

44 I had to return, then. And I confess it cost me 
the greatest effort of my life. Plunge, of my inde¬ 
pendent will, into that living, active, menacing hell, 
whence I had escaped miraculously? Face that dark¬ 
ness, that confusion, those possibilities of torture, 
treachery, hideous death—when here I could meet and 
fight fairly any who tried to harm me ? But Irene was 
there. 

44 1 plunged in again, as I might have jumped into 
a cauldron of seething lead. 

44 No sooner had I done so, than the outer door closed 
as of itself. I heard the lock grind, and the bolts shoot 
into place. I lunged forward to seize whoever might 
be there. No one was there. 

44 Somehow, I reached a part of the house really new 
to me. The floor was so uneven that I tripped at every 
step. I dropped on my hands and knees to feel the 
boards and explain those inequalities if I could. There 
were trap-doors, part-opened in all directions, as if the 
mechanism had failed to work, or as if to give fair 
warning that they gaped ready for use. As if any¬ 
thing at the Manor of Cour-de-France could be fair, 


240 ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 

however ! A cold, damp, cavernous smell blew through 
the gaps. 

6( I remembered those words spoken by Gazeaux to 
the Marquis, behind the curtains, as I listened to their 
plot: he had alluded to 6 the grave we know of, the 
secret sepulchre which none can ever find.’ Save those 
who tumbled or were thrown into it, presumably. I 
scrambled away, tearing my hands and knees against 
the edges of the traps. 

“ But why so many, I kept asking myself—why so 
many ? 

66 When I reached a smooth floor again, I felt I had 
aged a score of years. At that, I did not trust the floor 
to be smooth in reality. 

66 I have alluded to the strange and odious things I 
touched. Now, things in their turn began to touch 
me. I believe I was almost at the end of my strength, 
and I am sure I was at the end of my wits, when I 
came unexpectedly upon that small court drawing-room 
where twice I had spoken with Irene. 

“ A human form brushed past me. I could hear it, 
all but feel it, and for an instant I imagined I saw r 
it. In my folly—for I knew better!—I whispered 
‘ Irene! 5 

“ The answer was a demoniacal laugh, followed by a 
rush of feet beating the floor with an uneven tread. 
Then, only silence. No : silence and despair. I wished 
now that the Marquis had used against me the cold 
steel he had pressed upon my temple. 

“ For a while I lingered in that room where new 
perspectives had opened before me. It was fitting that 


THE DARKEST HOUR 241 

my hopes, since they were dead, should find here their 
eternal burial. 

“ Now came the blackest hour of my life—the hour 
in which, rousing for a brief while from the apathy of 
despair in which I had been plunged, I consciously 
renounced Irene. Its shadow would be marked upon 
all my future, I knew, even though the skies above 
myself and others were destined to brighten again— 
for others. 

“ Nor was this my sole renunciation in that hour. 

“ The claims, the pretensions for whose sake I had 
come to France, dropped away from me as hollow shams 
of vanities; I wanted no honours which I could turn to 
no account; I desired no title at all, and no name save 
my own; I thought once more, with soothing restful¬ 
ness, of those old Southern surroundings which I had 
so readily abandoned in my quest of chimeras. 
Chimeras! I had met them and fought them; I had 
fought and been conquered. 

fi< No! I could renounce false claims as well as 
shattered loves. But then—what remained to me in 
life ? To go tamely home, and try to gather anew the 
threads I had broken—to go on as before, when I was 
not as before- 

66 Irene, Irene! Though my heart might be dead, 
my soul still cried out to her! And the thought came 
that I might make to her the gift of my useless life. If 
she knew, she would not hesitate to accept such dross; 
she could not resent my watching over her, my guard¬ 
ing and defending her, my delivering her in the end, 
when I had no reward to claim, and was offering a life 

10 



242 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


not worthy the name! If I dared to serve her and to 
live, she would scorn and spurn me. But I had the 
right to serve her and die. 

44 Death, grim death, mad irrational death stalked 
in those black rooms and passages, and under those 
gaping traps; death alert for the innocent and the 
unsuspecting, while passing the guilty by. My sacri¬ 
fice—which was no sacrifice!—was meant for Irene, of 
course; but I liked to think I might save those others 
also. 

4 4 It was the foolish, chivalrous inspiration of youth, 
of a youth expiring in the course of a night, leaving 
the gates of character open to manhood—though man¬ 
hood was to pass through and on, lost for evermore. 

44 1 foresaw no morrow; I shrank from the dawn as 
from a revelation too painful to be borne by the eyes 
of the flesh. I was not enough of a coward to contem¬ 
plate suicide. I intended to save Irene from her mad 
husband, and save those others if I could; and then 
return and face the Marquis and his steward. I knew 
the Marquis was out for blood; and, prophetically, I 
knew he would secure a victim. Well, I would be his 
victim—at dawn. And with the thought, and the 
thought of what would come before, there was a drop 
of sweetness in my cup at this, the darkest hour.” 


Chapter 25 


Dawn 


The sound of whispers reached him; he stopped to 
identify the speakers. They were Marchioness Elvira 
and the Baron de Vernac. He was about to go on 
his way when a few words brought an astounding 
revelation. 

He said to me, continuing his narrative: 

66 A thought, born perhaps of a fevered brain, 
occurred to me. I’m not trying to argue the right or 
wrong of it now; I merely tell you what my attitude 
was then. I said to myself : 

6 6 6 It is my right to learn what cause I am undertak¬ 
ing. Secrets surprised by me to-night are confided to 
the grave. My life is already given up. When I face 
the Marquis at dawn, and speak the truth to him, he 
is sure to kill me. Let me escape, although I do not 
want to escape, and Gazeaux would be there to avenge 
his master. And this, supposing that neither of them, 
nor yet Alain de Laurency nor the Baron de Vernac, 
kills me in the dark by a chance thrust, or intending to 
reach me. I am as one already dead; but it is my 
right and my duty to fulfil my last acts with unsealed 
eyes.’ 

“ The point of honour I drew was a fine one, I admit. 
But I had been so harrowed and bewildered—I had 
such a yearning to accomplish something before casting 
243 


244 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


off my useless life! If you must judge me harshly, 
remember I had said good-bye to life; and remember 
I was young, and defeated, and heart-broken. Though 
I have lived to tell you about it, now that all this 
is of little moment to those I perhaps betrayed, I 
believe I can truly say that was the last night of my 
youth. 

“ As I listened to Elvira and the Baron, I fought in 
a nightmare to control my muscles. For I revolted 
against what I heard, I asked but to flee from those 
awful avowals, yet I had resolved that I must learn to 
the end. 

“The Baron de Vernac was not declaring his love; 
that was an old, old story between them; he was remind¬ 
ing her, with brutal insistence, of her pledges to him, 
and demanding that she renew them. She told him— 
and she said it was a repetition—that she would not 
renounce her rank of Marchioness in exchange for that 
of Baroness; that she would not compromise her posi¬ 
tion at the Manor of Cour-de-France by altering her 
attitude towards the Marquis; but that while de 
Vernac’s visits were charged up to the account of the 
other Marchioness, they two need fear nothing. 

66 At the idea that Irene was being made the victim 
of calumny so as to shield these guilty loves, I forgot 
my plans, my very desire to give my life in a determined 
way. I fell upon de Vernac, or a person I took for de 
Vernac. But it was Alain de Laurency. 

“We struggled in a compact mass, the three of us. 
I slipped from between them, where I could only expect 
to be stabbed. They, at least, were armed. I did not 


DAWN 


245 


mean to let them fight it out. A few moments before, 
my hand had touched a table loaded with weapons; I 
had felt a long cuirassier’s sword in its scabbard. With 
that I could separate the two men. 

44 1 had not time to reach the table—if, indeed, it 
were still in the same place. There was a sudden rush, 
a force as if hurled from a catapult struck me aside, 
and evidently cleaved the combatants apart. I heard 
them stumbling and cursing across the room; I heard 
steps recede in several different directions; I heard doors 
closing. What had happened was that the Marquis de 
La Villeratelle and Gazeaux had intervened, sparing 
those two fives for a different ending, I suppose, wherein 
the Marquis could assert his power. Then the two had 
been decoyed away through opposite exits. 

44 The Marquis spoke in the silence and the Stygian 
darkness: 

44 4 You are there?’ 

44 That tone was not meant for me; his voice, usually 
colourless, was warm and soft. 

44 Marchioness Elvira replied, and he came near 
her. 

44 They did not suspect my presence. But with this 
pair I felt no need for arguing fine points of gentlemanly 
behaviour. I stood very still. 

44 4 What were they saying ?’ the Marquis asked. 

44 4 Compliments characteristic of both—threats and 
curses,’ she answered indifferently. 

44 4 Nothing to compromise the Marchioness?’ 

44 4 Do you suppose they would, when speaking 
together ? ’ 


246 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


66 6 1 have had enough of doubts and suspicions !’ the 
Marquis exclaimed violently, yet not raising his tone. 
4 There is a conspiracy to deceive me, to hide proofs 
from me. Is not what I know enough? I swear to 
drive that woman from my house.’ 

“ 4 What, then, is your pleasure regarding myself?’ 
Elvira asked coldly. 

“ 4 You shall be the mistress, as you have been all 
this time. Owing to the accursed fate visited upon 
me when you married my ill-starred and short-lived 
brother, you can never be my wife before men, but you 
shall be my wife before God ! ’ he blasphemed. 

“ ‘ I have only to say, Marquis, that I have remained 
too long as it is,’ she retorted. 

44 The Marquis, cursing to himself, and vowing he 
would yet reduce her to reason—I pledge you my word 
that he called it reason!—stamped out of the room. 

44 She left it also by another door. I followed 
her. 

44 4 Marchioness,’ I said, 4 it is only fair for me to 
tell you I have heard.’ 

44 4 Heard—what?’ she scoffed. 

4 4 4 Heard de Vernac and the Marquis, both,’ 

I answered. 4 What is your game?’ 

44 While I spoke, I expected the Marquis to shoot 
or stab me from behind. If he did not, it was that he 
had indeed gone. 

44 4 Perhaps you might ask them what their game is,’ 
she said haughtily. 4 For my part, I think they have 
bed no more than you.’ She stopped. 4 Perhaps not 
so much as you.’ She stopped again. 4 Will you 


DAWN 247 

admit you lied tome?’ she demanded suddenly. 4 When 
you made love to me, you were lying ? ’ 

44 4 Yes,’ I said. 4 1 deceived you. What of it? 
You deceive others.’ 

<fi 4 So do you.’ 

44 4 Perhaps. In which case we break even.’ 

44 4 Your purpose was-’ 

44 4 To be released from those cords. I knew neither 
threats nor bribes nor flattery could do it. I knew 
ordinary flirting couldn’t do it. I tried deceiving 
myself into the momentary belief that I admired you. 
I succeeded—for just the moment needed.’ 

44 4 And your purpose-’ 

44 4 Was to save Irene—the Marchioness.’ 

44 4 Irene!’ she repeated, musingly. 4 So you loved 
her?’ 

44 4 Yes.’ 

44 4 When making love to me, you loved her?’ 

44 4 You have perfectly seized the distinction, Mar¬ 
chioness. I loved her, and made love to you.’ 

44 4 And you tell me this without fearing to die?’ 

44 4 Say rather, hoping to die.’ 

44 4 Hoping-’ 

44 4 Yes. She has no love for me.’ 

44 4 It is possible that, if your words to me had been 
sincere-’ 

44 4 Why should I be sincere with you, who have 
sought but to destroy her ? I tell you, I have heard ! ’ 

44 Marchioness Elvira laughed and was gone. At 
that instant, I fancied I heard a sob. From her? It 
had not the sound of her voice. . . . 






248 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


44 Footsteps entered. Alain de Laurency spoke, 
and Irene cried out. They must have met there, un¬ 
expectedly ; perhaps his groping arms had found 
her. 

44 1 had but one thought, now—to creep away unde¬ 
tected and throw myself under the axe of the Marquis 
or on the sword of de Vernac. Irene had no need for 
my protection; and so I had done with life, even before 
the coming of dawn. 

44 But we had been made prisoners in there; or else 
Irene and Alain stood so as to block the only door. I 
felt my way round the walls, doubling back when within 
a foot of them so as to leave no other space unexplored. 
There was no exit available; and I had no choice but 
to hear his words of love. My only time for speaking 
was at the very first moment, when I would have left 
them to their love-making. What explanation was 
possible now ? 

44 1 heard him approach the subject, gently, so as not 
to offend her. I heard her ask for his counsel, whether 
her marriage could be annulled; and I heard him prove 
that it could. 

44 While keeping him at a distance, she actually 
thought of asking for the return of the Laurency snuff¬ 
box. He wanted to keep it for remembrance, he said. 
She urged that she wanted it for remembrance, too. 
All her womanly wits were put into action; and I, poor 
mole, was groping my way blindly in the search for 
outer darkness, which to me, compared with this, would 
mean the light. 

44 Of the words which followed, I have no clear im- 


DAWN 


249 


pression. I was stricken, stunned. It seemed to me 
that, having won from him that token of friendship 
which for an hour had meant so much to her for my 
sake, and which she now asked for his, she lost interest. 
A woman’s whim, perhaps! 

*' 4 Beginning to pour out words of love, he caught 
her in his arms and tried to kiss her. She struggled 
and called out for assistance. I seized him by the 
shoulders. 

“ At that instant came a shriek, a horrible succession 
of shrieks. 

“ There was a sound of fighting and of falling; then 
shrieks so eloquently hideous that nothing human can 
describe them; then fresh sounds of falling, and scrap¬ 
ing, and bouncing, in a strange, muffled diminuendo; 
then a loud crash, as of wood smiting wood; then an 
appalling echo; then an immense silence during which 
a blaze of flaring red tore aside the curtains of prevail¬ 
ing darkness. 

“ The mad Marquis had set fire to his Manor of 
Cour-de-France; in his despair at the last words 
addressed to him by Marchioness Elvira, I presume. 

“ He was completely insane when I found him; and 
there was no trace of Gazeaux anywhere; and Alain de 
Laurency and the Baron de Vernac, meeting in the light 
of the flames, flew at each other like dogs, and expended 
on sword-play an energy which might have been devoted 
to altruistic ends. The consequence was that I had to 
fight the fire unaided. 

“ I did not have serious difficulty. The precautions 
which the Marquis had taken to let it catch undetected 


250 


ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 


were what made it possible for me to save the house : 
he had closed every door and window within reach. 
Besides, the Chinese Dressing-Room, where he had 
started the fire because of the furnaces belonging to the 
torture-chamber, was built outside the house-wall, and 
mostly of steel. The wind, by good chance, was from 
the west, and blew the sparks away. 

“ So, save for that scar seared in its flank—a blessed 
scar marking the removal of a hideous sore—the Manor 
of Cour-de-France was saved. 

66 In the darkness, now absolute once more, I felt a 
frail form pressed closely against mine; a soft hand 
sought mine and nestled in it. I drew back. 

“ ‘ I am Gilbert Lawrence,’ I said proudly. 

ee 6 I am Irene,’ she answered. 

66 Still, I did not understand. 

6i ‘ I know,’ she said. 6 I heard.’ Her hand had 
remained in mine. She spoke again : tf I heard—what 
you told Elvira.’ 

“ 4 Dearest!’ I cried. 4 Then you will let me 
explain-’ : 

“‘Did I not say I understood?’ came her gentle 
reproach. 4 1 know, too, you heard what I said to 
Alain de Laurency. I wanted you to be there when I 
recovered your little gold box.’ 

“ 4 Irene—you will follow me ?’ I asked, as I took her 
in my arms. 

“ c To the end of the world !’ she said. 

“ 4 No—to America,’ I answered. ‘ I have no titles 
or honours to offer you-’ 

“ 6 By the grace of God!’ she sighed fervently. 




DAWN 


251 


“ Suddenly, the darkness lifted, as if a heavy shade 
had been torn from a great incandescent globe. We 
did not yet see the light, but we knew light lived once 
again in the world. It was the swift, complete message 
of a dawn needing no herald of song or of cloud.” 


Chapter 26 


In the Light 


Soon after sunrise, a wilted yet merry party arrived in 
carriages along the highway leading to the Manor of 
Cour-de-France; and sounds of convivial voices and 
snatches of popular ballads filled the air. The servants 
were returning together from the neighbouring town, 
where their generous though eccentric tyrant, the Mar¬ 
quis, had allowed them to entertain, at his expense, 
their friends at a dance in the largest public hall: on 
the sole condition that they observe respectability and 
come home in the small hours of the morning. They 
had somewhat over-stayed their time, but otherwise had 
carried out the agreement. 

What added to their gaiety was that they had met, 
and had detained, and now convoyed with them on 
horseback another servant rejoining his master, who 
was their master’s guest. 

They were startled to see the Manor soiled by smoke 
and ashes, though scarcely damaged; they hurriedly 
entered, prepared to fight a fire which, fortunately, had 
ceased to exist. But they witnessed a series of astonish¬ 
ing sights which set the tongues of the entire country 
wagging for many a day. 

They saw the Count de Laurency rush out, demand¬ 
ing his horse, saying he had all but killed a man who 
needed instant help; and so he rode off. 

252 


IN THE LIGHT 


258 


They found Marchioness Elvira bending over the 
Baron de Vernac, by the fountain in the little inner 
courtyard ; they heard her swear to serve him and never 
to leave him; they heard her order a carriage; but he 
was too seriously wounded to be moved, so they put 
him to bed in a room of state and sent post-haste for 
a doctor; and to-day the Manor of Cour-de-France 
belongs to a certain self-styled Duke and Duchess de 
Vernac de La Villeratelle de Vozmediano. 

They met the mistress whom they had never been 
taught to regard as a mistress, leaning on the arm of 
a total stranger; she, too, ordered a carriage, and they 
dared not obey her; the strange servant who had 
joined them undertook to carry out those orders; but 
the carriage got ready for the other Marchioness stood 
waiting, and the three got in and drove away, never 
once looking back : the carriage was returned and the 
stranger’s horses were claimed on the morrow. 

Finally, they stumbled upon the Marquis de La 
Villeratelle, lost in a mass of charred black curtains, 
fondling an ancient axe of peculiar shape; his glasses 
were broken and he could not see; his one thin strand 
of hair bristled on his crimson and sweat-stained skull; 
he left his retreat only to tear foolishly at an old con¬ 
demned trap-door, muttering the name of his faithful 
steward; and failing to open it, he howled and 
whimpered like a frightened child—as, indeed, he had 
become for evermore. 

Gazeaux was never heard of again. 





















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